Mass Effect: Records of an Irken Defective
by KiwiDayDreams
Summary: An Irken stasis pod is discovered on Earth and Shepard finds herself saddled with the megalomanic Irken, Zim. Things become more complicated when they discover Zim's home planet has been reaped during Zim's stint on Earth. Set post ME2/IZ end.
1. Intruder

**_A/N: This crossover is Mass Effect-centric. It's recommended that you have played the game or have a basic knowledge of its story and characters._**

CHAPTER 1: INTRUDER

"I dare you."

"No frickin' way, Anthony. We don't even know what's in there. Besides the whole thing creeps me out. Who builds things like this anymore?"

"It's just an old house. Don't be such a wuss, Mark."

"If that's the case, why don't YOU go first?"

The two young men turned their eyes warily back to the eyesore of a structure that was the topic of their argument. The small, archaic house seemed ridiculously out of place as it was overshadowed by the monolithic buildings that made up the rest of the city. Flecks of what might have been a greenish paint just barely clung to its exterior.

The story was that the building had been maintained as a sort of historical monument but no one really knew much about it beyond that. This granted fertile grounds for rumor and speculation that were as good as anyone's guess. The house should have been completely unimposing; something that you might see in an old realty magazine from the 21st century. However, there were many peculiar things about it that had a tendency to send shivers of unease down your spine. For some reason it looked oddly out of proportion like it was a part of some warped photograph, some things too large, too small, or completely crooked. Even worse were the extremely peculiar tubes extruding from either side. Some of them lay loose, silent snakes in the dirt, while others were clamped onto the skeletons of what may have been other homes once.

"Because I don't have a gun," replied the chiding man, Anthony. His eyes darted to Marcus' shoulder where the weapon was strapped over his Alliance gear.

"Do you have any idea how much trouble I would get in if I fired this thing in a public area without just cause?" Marcus responded, incredulous.

"Well, if there is really anything to shoot at in there then there will be just cause, won't there?" his friend pointed out, amused.

"You've had way too much to drink, man," Marcus sighed, not having any of this nonsense.

"Oh, fine. I can't believe you got into the military." Anthony waved a hand dismissively and turned, walking towards the house.

"There's a reason you didn't, you know! ….Come back here. It's not funny."

"Just a second," he drawled, his eyes darting to the worn, long tubes as he passed the ones on the ground. "I'll show you how it's done." His words came weakly as he felt his heart start pounding harder in his chest. He begged the tubes not to move as he stepped over one in his way. They seemed to obey his wishes and before he knew it he was at the front door. Marcus watched him tentatively from the street, his hands fidgeting and ready to reach for his pistol.

Anthony stood on the doorstep briefly, wondering if the door was locked. Part of him hoped that it was, so he could throw away the whole charade without looking like a coward. He looked to his left and his right, noticing that he was flanked with old and broken things. One, he suspected, was what they used to call a garden gnome, but he hadn't seen one himself until just then. Even that was creepy; part of its head had caved in so it was missing half of its face and grinned up at him manically. He shook the chill that ran up his spine and reached for the ancient looking doorknob.

_Please be locked. Please, God, be locked,_ he prayed.

The house was not complying this time, and the door pushed open with a dusty and foreboding creek. Anthony was suddenly reminded of all the horror films he had watched as a child. Nothing good usually came of something like this.

"Anthony?" Marcus asked.

_I'll just step inside...and that's it... That will be enough_, Anthony thought.

He took a deep breath and put on the best confident face he could muster. He took a step up into the doorway, standing just inside the entry, and turned to face Marcus.

"See, what did I say?" he called, managing to contain the shudder in his voice just enough. He felt his skin begin to crawl as he thought he heard something whisper inside the house behind him.

_Nothing, it's nothing. Just look at him, man, he's freaked! _

Marcus' face was frozen in a look Anthony had never quite seen before. His hands twitched and he looked like he wanted to pull his gun but couldn't quite get his body to move. In the darkness behind Anthony all Marcus could see was something red gleaming. No, two red things gleaming..., and then suddenly there came an awful metallic grinding noise that made his hands fly to his ears.

Anthony didn't have time to turn and see what it was. It was as if the dark swam up and wrapped itself around him, pulling him inside and slamming the door shut. A scream pierced the air followed by more mind-shattering squeals and grinding noises; metal on metal. Marcus could not move, nor speak. He watched as blood sprayed from one of the broken windows like a freshly opened wound.

He screamed.

* * *

"Repairs should be complete and we should be ready for departure in 2 hours."

"Great. Thanks EDI," Commander Shepard said before turning to the pilot beside her. "You did a great job, Joker. I would say I'm surprised we didn't suffer more damage, but...well, you know." She shrugged and smirked at him, flipping through her data pad. Joker grinned a bit and shuffled in his chair with a look of well-earned pride.

"Yeah, I do," he said. She patted him on the shoulder and headed to the combat information center to plot a new route for supplies.

"Hello, Commander," Yeoman Chambers greeted as usual with a smile. Shepard gave her a nod and returned the gesture. She was glad that the girl seemed in better spirits today despite all the trauma she had been through. Kelly had been severely distressed after she and the rest of the crew had been rescued from the Collector base, but she seemed determined to overcome it. Shepard knew she would never be entirely the same, though. Seeing what she had seen, and having already died once, she knew you didn't just walk away from these things quite so easy.

The entire crew had almost been lost that day. The remaining team aboard the Normandy had followed the Collectors to their base on the other side of the Omega 4 relay and had found the captive pods mere seconds before they liquified everyone. Harbinger had intended to use them, along with countless others, to fuel the birth of a Human-Reaper. The abomination was something that was still haunting Shepard's sleep and a great deal of her waking moments. She was still grateful that everyone had made it out alive and could only hope for such luck when it came to facing the Reapers head-on.

As she looked over the map and began to set a course, the Commander was interrupted by Joker's voice over the comm.

"Hey, Shepard? You wouldn't believe this but there's a message coming in from Admiral Hackett. I'll patch him through."

Shepard was a little puzzled, though she didn't mind hearing from the Admiral. The last time she had spoken to him was a little over two years ago when they both took part in the critical battle against the Reaper, Sovereign. Hackett had led the Alliance vessels that had defended the Council's ship, the Destiny Ascension. Without his help a lot more lives may have been lost that day.

"Shepard, this is Admiral Hackett," his gruff voice came over the comm. For some reason, it was comforting to hear him again. "It's nice to speak with you again. Thought we had lost you for good."

"Yeah, that seemed to be the consensus, but I hate to be predictable."

"Yes, well," he said, sounding as though he had chuckled just a little, or maybe it was just a cough. "I imagine being back from the dead you probably have a lot on your plate these days, but I'm afraid I need to ask for your assistance."

"What is it, Admiral?"

"There's been an incident on Earth," he said. "There's some strange phenomena going on in New Philadelphia. We're getting strange energy readings from a structure in the area and we need to have it checked out."

"I don't have a problem helping, but why hasn't the Alliance done anything?" Shepard wasn't about to ask if he had contacted the Council for help. God knows they wouldn't lift a finger for anything – even for the people who had once saved their lives.

"We've tried, but there's a bit of a hitch in things. We've got historical independence groups getting riled up that they don't want soldiers doing anything with the building for fear we'll destroy something important. On the other hand, I have people frantic about the fact that one of my soldiers says he witnessed a man get murdered by it."

"Murdered by it? What are we talking about, exactly?"

"A house."

"A house?" Now Shepard was really confused.

"Yes, like one of those things from way back before the Mars discovery. One of my rookies said that he saw it devour someone." Hackett paused, probably playing back his own words in his head and wondering how ridiculous it sounded. "From what I've seen so far, whether that's true or not, it does appear that something gruesome happened there recently. That, and no one can figure out what's causing the energy spikes we're getting."

"So if the investigation is being held up by these groups, how am I supposed to get in?"

"That's the thing, Shepard. You're a hero on Earth and just about everyone on it. If you come down here I'm sure they would be more than willing to let you take a look." He paused a moment again. "...And, to be perfectly honest, I think there's something not right about this place."

Shepard thought for a moment. She was genuinely intrigued by the fact a military man of Hackett's history was spooked by what sounded like a very normal, old building. It seemed like sort of a trivial thing to travel all the way to Earth for, but Hackett didn't just go asking for favors unless there was something behind it. Besides, she owed him one. Returning to Earth was not a top priority for Shepard, seeing as how her memories of it were not the fondest; fighting for survival in the slums until she enlisted when she came of age. She doubted it had changed much.

"I'll be there ASAP."

"Thank you. I'll connect with you when you arrive." The comm-link disconnected and Shepard descended the steps from the map terminal.

"I'm sorry, but I couldn't help overhearing...," Kelly spoke up. "This sounds awful serious. You should be careful."

"No worries, Kelly. I'm always careful," Shepard grinned and the Yeoman gave her a puzzled look like she had no idea when she had ever seen such a thing. The Commander said no more, and headed down to the Engineering deck to speak with Tali. Not sure what they were heading into, Shepard liked having a technical expert on hand. Legion was also a prime candidate, but the human race was not quite so friendly when it came to the synthetics that had raided the Citadel not long before.

"Hello, Shepard" the Quarian greeted as she approached, still tapping away at her terminal diligently. Tali was always very thorough with her work. She would check and recheck to make sure everything lined up properly. It was something that Shepard admired about her, along with her determination and inward strength. A lot of Quarians that she had seen did not do so well when they left the Flotilla. Tali was an exception and almost nothing daunted her; not even the suit that she was seemingly destined to wear the rest of her life. She was also one of very few of Shepard's original crew, and that made her all the more endearing.

"Tali, I need you to come with me on a quick errand." Tali turned around and despite how foggy her helmet was, Shepard was almost sure she looked confused. Her voice confirmed it.

"An errand?"

"Yes. I need to take a team down to Earth to check out a report from Admiral Hackett."

"What report?"

"Something about a man-eating house. I'm not sure, I don't have all the details," Shepard said, nonchalantly. Now Tali really was puzzled. She tapped her fingertips on the jaw of her helmet.

"Okay... I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by strange things happening around you. Just let me know when you are ready to go."

Shepard smiled and nodded, turning to exit. She made her way down to the crew quarters and gave a wave to Rupert, the cook, as she passed the mess hall. There was no one better she could think to watch her back in a situation such as this than the Turian, Garrus. Just like with Tali, they had survived numerous battles together and were an excellent team, plus he was ideal for any sort of infiltration.

Garrus had always held Shepard in high regard ever since he started working with her. In a lot of ways she had become his mentor, and he had been distraught when he thought she had died. He had suffered a similar sort of agony when he found out she was alive, having blocked off that part of himself, ready to move on.

Losing her had put things into a much different perspective. When she had suggested they "blow off steam" prior to the mission to the Collector's base, he had been at a loss for words. He had agreed, almost out of habit with her, but really had no idea of what it all meant or where it was going.

In the days following their unexpected return from the mission, both the Commander and the Turian found themselves staying quite close to one another. Their bond remained unspoken, but not unacknowledged.

"Garrus," she said as she entered, in a semi-sing-song voice.

"What insane thing are you going to ask me to do now?" he asked, though half-jokingly, without turning around. Shepard sauntered in and leaned on the railing near his console.

"Nothing terribly out of the norm, I swear," she smiled. "Actually, it's simple. Just recon, really. No missiles to the face."

Garrus turned his head to eye her, his talons ceasing their endless calibrations for once. He gave a slight Turian smirk at the missile comment. Not a lot of people could make that claim; surviving a massive explosion to the head. True, half of his face had been reconstructed after the fact, but it didn't make it any less of a feat.

"Uh...huh," he hummed in the back of his throat.

"I'll have you back to your calibrations in a few hours, I promise," she said, resting a palm on his hand nearest to her and looking at him with mischievous eyes. Garrus looked at her hand and then at her again. Damnit. He hated when she got touchy. Not that he hated the touching, it just made it hard to argue with her.

"Alright, stop with the eyes," Garrus murmured, pulling his hand from beneath hers and laying it on top briefly. "Just let me know when it's time."

"Thank you," she said, giving his arm a nudge as she passed him to leave. He simply chuckled and shook his head.

* * *

New Philadelphia was one of the oldest and largest Metropolises on Earth. High society and cultural enlightenment were almost as abundant as crime and poverty. It did a magnificent job of hiding its ugly underbelly, as cities often did. Dazzled by high-rises and feats of cutting-edge technology, visitors would never know the reality of what they had obliviously overlooked. Shepard did not care for the familiarity of such a place. She had not grown up here, but she was more than well acquainted with the darker side of life in a city like this. It was a memory she often forced herself to ignore.

By the time their squad had arrived at the site of the report, there was a huge crowd to greet them. Hackett saw them approach and made his way through the mob with the help of some of his soldiers. Tali was nearly knocked to the ground as the neared the house, but Garrus managed to grab a a hold of her arm and stop her fall. She thanked him with a nod as they moved into a quarantined area just outside the building. Shepard surveyed the wreck of a house and everything around it, scrutinizing. The sight of the it gave her an odd feeling in the pit of her stomach that she didn't like. It didn't help that there appeared to be dried blood stains in the dirt leading from a splatter at one of the windows. Someone had been killed here, and recently.

"I've never seen anything like this. Though, I'm not certain I want to know what those are for," Tali mentioned, looking around at the ominously large tubing that flanked where they stood.

"Whatever it was, it looks like it's been out of use for a long time," Garrus said, adjusting his rifle in his hands, feeling a little uncomfortable as he nudged one with his foot. A small cloud of dust and dirt coughed out of the open end.

"How are things going here?" Shepard asked, turning to Hackett.

"It's been complete chaos," he said with a small shake of his head. "The sooner we find out what's going on the better. If this goes on much longer we're going to have a riot."

"I'll try to be quick."

"Just be careful." Then in a slightly louder voice, so certain parties could hear, he added, "And, please, refrain from destroying anything in the building."

As the trio turned and headed for the house, Garrus leaned in towards her.

"You're not supposed to break anything? They do know who you are, right?" he said lowly.

"I didn't sign anything," Shepard replied with a crooked grin. A Turian smirk crossed Garrus' face.

Standing at the doorstep, the Commander gave the entry a quick scan with her omni-tool. She looked over the readings and tapped a finger to her lips.

"Tali, can you run a scan, please?" Tali nodded and scanned the door with her own omni-tool.

"What do you have?"

"It seems like the entire building is made of an unknown material. I've never seen anything like it before. I'm also getting some readings that indicate that there's some sort of energy network running through the entire foundation."

"Hm. That's what I got, too." Shepard reached back to grasp her assault rifle and reached out tentatively to grip the doorknob. It didn't make any sense. The house appeared old in make, but it was built with substances that didn't even register in any database. Wherever it came from, it seemed inhuman. Pushing the door open, she slowly stepped inside, stayed close to the wall and activated night vision in her helmet. The building was shrouded in darkness despite the light of the city, overshadowed by the giants that had been constructed around it. Tali and Garrus carefully followed her, covering different parts of the room. The floor creaked mournfully as they moved throughout the small building.

"Shepard, look at this," Garrus said, gesturing with the barrel of his rifle at a dark, massive stain on the floor. Splatter and spray told the story of how the blood had reached the window. A second trail stretched farther into the house.

"I'm not seeing anything here. Let's check the other rooms," Shepard said quietly into her comm.

"Maybe whatever it was isn't here anymore," Tali offered, though she suspected that was not the case.

"What in the...?" came Shepard's voice and her partners followed her into a kitchen.

"What?" Garrus asked. Shepard gestured with her rifle to something in the corner.

It was a toilet...installed in the kitchen, as if it was trying to look like the most normal thing in the world.

The blood trail led to it and abruptly stopped.

"That's just gross," she said. There was suddenly a very loud slam behind them. Tali turned to look, gripping her shotgun tightly.

"Shepard, the door just closed."

"Are you serious?" she replied, pushing past Tali to see it was, in fact, true. Garrus and Tali were still right by her side so she knew it hadn't been either of them who had done it. She also didn't suspect Hackett was one for practical jokes. "Tali, go see if you can open it. Garrus and I will cover you." The Quarian nodded and moved swiftly for the door as Garrus followed. Shepard turned to look back in the kitchen briefly, feeling as though her nerves were on fire. It was one of those times where you were almost certain there was something stalking you but you just couldn't see it. She turned to join the others...

...and came face to face with two red gleaming eyes staring right into her helmet.

"Holy shit!" she exclaimed, trying to lift her gun to fire at it, but finding it almost impossible to move. Her arms were constricted by something she couldn't see. Tali and Garrus had heard her scream and turned to see a mass of black and gleams of metal engulfing her form. Garrus took the initiative and aimed, getting a shot off at what he guessed was the thing's head. It squealed and released Shepard, rolling about the floor in a frenzy with sparks spouting from the injury. Recovering from her shock, Shepard lifted her gun and shot at it where it lay, but it managed to dodge, flying about the room in a ghostly fashion. It continued to scream madly, and then it appeared to laugh, and then scream again.

"Put that thing down!" Shepard commanded, though it seemed to be an impossible task even with the three of them attacking it at once. They aimed and it flew aside just as their rounds would have contacted it. "What the hell is WRONG with this thing?" It had stopped screaming and was now just laughing maniacally as it seemed to toy with them. Tali watched it with a fearful awe, noticing that the red lights had suddenly changed to a bright, neon blue. It seemed to change every time it started to cackle. She was almost certain it was a synthetic of some sort. The way it sounded when it moved and 'spoke' supported the theory. The strange thing was it seemed to be throwing a complete haywire fit.

"Intru-DER!" it intoned, eyes flaring red again just as it leapt from the ground towards Garrus. Whatever appendages or tendrils it had, it clamped onto him and knocked him backward with such force that when he hit the floor it collapsed.

"Garrus!" the women cried, running over to the newly formed hole.

"It goes further down?" Shepard asked incredulously. Beneath the floorboards was not a standard foundation, but a very deep, dark hole.

"We need to get more help, Shepard," Tali said, her tone obviously frightened.

"We don't have time. That thing could kill him!" her Commander replied. "You stay up here in case I need to contact the surface for help. I'm going after him."

"But you don't know what's down there! What if you can't get back up?"

"You know I don't leave my crew behind," was all Shepard had to say and Tali understood. She felt panicked about it, but she understood.

"O-okay. Let me know when you've found him...," she stammered a little. Shepard nodded and braced herself, grabbing Garrus' dropped rifle and climbed down into the hole. She prayed to god it didn't lead into something dreadful; things she really didn't want to think about. She kept her concentration on Garrus and finding out where he went.

The hole was very steep, deep and dark. Strange smells like something burning filled her nose and she tried to hold her breath. Skidding down through dirt for what seemed an eternity, she finally hit something solid and smooth. Before she could decipher what it was, she saw a form in front of her and hurried to it. Garrus was sitting, cradling his head in his hands and she knelt by him, checking him for injuries.

"My god, are you okay?" she asked, breathlessly.

"I think so. I guess I should ask you to be more specific about what WILL be hitting me in the face next time." Shepard felt like telling him it wasn't the time for joking, but just let her relief wash over her instead.

"This is insane. Do you know where it went?"

"No. We landed here and next thing I know it went screaming off somewhere else."

"I wonder where the hell we are now...," Shepard said, standing and activating her omni-tool to scan again. Bizarre and foreign symbols littered the screen and she tapped at them haphazardly, not knowing what else to do. There was a sudden jerk beneath their feet and then a humming noise around them. Garrus hopped to his feet and Shepard hastily handed him his weapon as lights dimly flickered and lit up in a circle around them. "I think we're going further down..."

"Great, that's exactly where I wanted to go," Garrus said with a huff.

"Tali? Can you hear me? I found Garrus but it seems like we're on some sort of elevator and its heading down. We'll try to find a way back up; just hold tight." She wasn't certain if Tali was getting her signal at all, but thought it couldn't hurt to send a message for good measure just in case they got into worse trouble.

"I think we're slowing down. Be ready," Garrus said, preparing himself and aiming at the door before them. Shepard followed his lead and they both waited with baited breath as the platform slowed and jolted to a halt. The doors creaked and sparked, taking a lot of effort to finally open all the way. Wary, she and Garrus exited the elevator slowly and looked around. Half-dead lights flickered at their feet, highlighting a narrow walkway. With nowhere to go but forward they followed the dreary path.

"I can't believe this," Garrus marveled. "This room is huge. How could this have gone unnoticed for so long?" The walkway was surrounded by spherical room whose depths were hard to fathom in the dim light. Like the house that sat on the surface, everything here looked old and long past use. The fact that the lights were even still working was a wonder.

"Garrus, I think we might be dealing with something completely foreign here," Shepard said, running scans on her omni-tool over and over again. Either nothing came up or more strange little symbols. She wondered if EDI would be able to decipher it though she suspected it might take a very long time. The Turian looked at her, trying to comprehend the idea that something that no one in the galaxy had discovered had been sitting smack in the middle of some Earth city. It seemed completely ludicrous but here it was.

"Oh, great. That's just what I wanted to see," he heard her say and then followed her gaze to what lie ahead of them. At the end of the walkway was a metallic, intricately decorated pod. Memories of the Collectors flooded back in the minds of both and they began to feel a very uncomfortable sense of deja vu. "It's got to be whatever built this place..."

"I suppose it would be too much to hope that it's already dead?" he asked no one in particular, just hoping out loud. Shepard sort of hoped that herself. She had had enough of pods and cocoons and anything of the like. They never meant anything good these days. They never meant butterflies; just horror and death and nightmares. They were on a mission, though. They had to figure out what was going on and what this thing was. Once she had confirmed it was deceased they could just go back to the Normandy and leave Earth and forget about the whole thing. She knew this was her inner comfort voice talking, and it wasn't doing a very good job of making her feel any better.

Taking a deep breath, she edged towards the pod.

And there it was again.

Out of nowhere the thing that had attacked them in the house was crouched down on the pod, eyeing her intensely.

"Not this again," she murmured to herself and stayed perfectly still. Though the light was dim, it was not as dark as before and she could get a better look at what it actually was. It was definitely a synthetic, robotic, and a complete and utter mess to look at. The eyes that were trained on her were the only thing that seemed to make sense. It had a head, arms and legs, but it just looked all wrong as if it had been thrown together at the last second. Wires hung loose and tangled for no apparent purpose. The limbs each looked as though they were made from different objects of varying sizes and shapes. She watched as it's head trembled with a spark from the hole where Garrus had shot it, still smoking. "I think...it's protecting the pod."

"A security drone of some sort, maybe," Garrus guessed, keeping the barrel of his rifle keen on the robot.

"If only we knew what all this jargon meant..," Shepard said, frustrated, as she slowly lifted her omni-tool to look at the language again. The robot watched her every move intently.

"Shep... you...? Lo...contact...," sputtered her omni-tool. Tali was trying to make contact with her.

"Shepard...," Garrus said with a warning tone and she looked back towards the fiend before her. It's wires were twitching and sparking. It looked quite agitated with the static coming from the comm.

"Send...Legi...you...," it crackled again and the robot began to make a fierce metallic screech.

"Shepard, move!" Shepard dove for the ground as the technological mess launched itself at her. Garrus took a shot at it again but missed. He barely dodged as it skidded across the walkway towards him, scratching metal against metal so hard it left a mark. Shepard scrambled to her feet and readied her assault rifle to take a shoot, but it was just too fast. It crashed into her with another scream and she fell backwards, off the platform.

"Shepard!" Garrus exclaimed, heading to assist her. The robot clung to her front as she hung perilously over the seemingly unending dark below. Garrus reached down, trying to help her up, but the metal monster swiped at him with sharp, serrated fingers whenever her got close. The wires that dangled from it started to shock her every time they came into contact with her suit. It did nothing to protect her from the onslaught; she may as well have been naked. She screamed with every surge and Garrus began to panic. He couldn't shoot it off her for fear of shooting her in the process. Desperate, and with her fingertips losing their grip, he finally grasped her wrist. Piercing metal dug into his talons and he grunted, gritting his teeth. "Let her go, damn you!"

The shocks traveled through her and into his arm now and it was all he could do to keep his grip on her.

"Shepard Commander. We are here to assist," he heard suddenly. Through bleary eyes he looked and saw Legion kneeling beside him and gripping the Commander's other arm, jolting with the shock waves. The two of them managed to pull her back onto the walkway and Legion reached over and gripped the smaller synthetic by its wayward wires, attempting to pull it free.

It squealed with another bizarre laugh and resisted. Shepard gasped as it tightened its hold on her, strangling. Legion's optical plates flared as the lights turned red. He gripped the machine with both hands now, burying fingers so deep that it began to dent metal. Sparks started to fly furiously and the robots body began to vibrate in a fit of overload. One more squeal sounded from its depths before it fell limp on the Commander's body, finally releasing her.

She gasped and shoved it away from her to move into a sitting position. Garrus wrapped his arms around her protectively.

"Are you okay?"

"I think I'll be okay...," she replied quietly. "I'm not losing one of my lives to a heap of scrap metal." Garrus shook his head and rested it against hers a moment.

"Yeah, that sounds like you."

"Legion. Thank you so much..., but how did you...?" she asked the Geth who was inspecting the mess in front of him.

"Tali Zorah called us for assistance. It was the most logical decision. We are not organic so we can withstand most unnatural situations."

"Do you have any idea what that thing is?" she asked, nodding towards the robot.

"Synthetic, but not like the Geth. Unknown construct. Unknown origin." His optical plates flared again. "Most likely a defect or malfunction." Shepard pulled herself to her feet with a little help from Garrus.

"Whatever it or that...," she gestured to the pod, "...is, we need to get them contained. It's obviously a threat and we can't leave them here for someone else to find and get themselves killed."

"So what do we do? There's no way we're storing them on the Normandy. Hell, I'm not sure I feel comfortable transporting them," Garrus said.

"We'll notify the Council and let them deal with it. They'll enjoy being responsible for the discovery of a new alien species, so let them have it. If I ever have to see these things again it will be too soon."

"Agreed," Garrus nodded.

"Shepard? Shepard, can you hear me?" Shepard's comm came through as clear as a bell now.

"There she is... Yes, Tali, I can hear you."

"Are you all alright? Did Legion find you?"

"Yes, he did, and yes, we're okay. A little roughed up, but okay."

"Keelah, I was so worried... Listen, Admiral Hackett is having his men find a away to get you out of there. Just stay put and you'll be out in no time."

"Thanks, Tali," Shepard replied, giving a tired sigh. "I don't think we'll be going anywhere at the moment."

She looked over at the pod now, wondering where it came from and what it was doing there. Part of her couldn't care less to find out what was inside, and the other part warned her vehemently not to think about it in the slightest. Deep down in the hidden room they couldn't hear the hum that the pod was emanating. Even Legion only felt a faint static interference which was not entirely out of the ordinary and thus not an immediate concern to him. All thoughts now turned to simply getting out and getting away to put the whole nasty mess behind them.

Despite their deepest hopes, however, what was in the pod was still very much alive.

And it was waiting...

Dreaming...

….and scheming.


	2. March of the Keepers

CHAPTER 2: MARCH OF THE KEEPERS

Mordin was perplexed.

It wasn't the first time he had been as such, but he never stayed that way for long. Usually, he was able to find a solution to his conundrums quite easily with some effort. The object of his attention was a very tiny bit of metal, suspended in an examination container on his desk. He had scrutinized and scanned and even wagered a guess or two, but it was all wrong. There was simply no record of the material in any known database and it was driving him mad with scientific curiosity. When he had inspected Garrus' wound and extracted the miniscule shard he hadn't even thought to request access to the robot they had mentioned. He criticized himself over and over again for assuming that this was something ordinary. It was equally excruciating to know that the pod they had found very likely housed a completely foreign species never before documented.

Why hadn't they told him when they found it instead of long after they had left the planet?

Perhaps he could request that they drop him off at the Citadel next time they were near one of the mass relays. Shepard was responsible for leading the Council to the pod so maybe she could get him access to do some studies. He quietly mourned his misfortune.

"Hey, Mordin," greeted Shepard as she entered his lab. For a moment, the Salarian's qualms were forgotten and the doctor in him took over.

"Greetings, Shepard. Are you feeling well?"

"Yes, thank you. That shot you gave me is helping a lot." While Garrus had suffered flesh wounds, Shepard's issues had been more internal. The synthetics that Cerberus had outfitted her with during Project Lazarus had taken a beating when she was being electrocuted by the strange robot. Luckily, no permanent damage had been done, but she had begun experience strange bodily spasms and feelings as though her nerves were on fire. Turning to Mordin for help, he had administered a shot that would help her body dispel any excess static or electricity. Within a couple of hours she felt as good as new. Garrus, on the other hand, found that he was likely going to gain a new scar after the wounds had been disinfected and sealed. The poor guy just couldn't catch a break. "Any luck with the new specimen?"

"Not yet," Mordin said, his voice taking on an air of barely-contained frustration as he continued to search through his databases for a ninth time. "May request a short leave at the Citadel for further study." It was only natural that Mordin would be interested in this, Shepard thought. Although she didn't want to be directly involved in it this was major for a scientific mind like the doctor's. She felt a little guilty for not having considered that sooner, but her mind had been understandably elsewhere at the time.

"Commander?" came Joker's voice over the comm in the lab.

"Yes, Joker?"

"You have a call from the Council. You can take it in the briefing room. I don't think I need to give the standard disclosure about them being upset with you, right?"

"Yeah. That's pretty much a given, isn't it? I'll head down there now." Shepard turned to give Mordin a wave before she turned to leave. "You might get to visit the Citadel sooner than you thought." The Salarian watched her go, excited anticipation welling up in his chest. He never liked to wait very long when it came to solving a problem so this could be a pleasant turn of events. At the time, he never had an inkling of a thought that the Council's distress might have to do with the very thing he was so fascinated with.

Any wandering thoughts were purged from his mind when he heard a familiar noise pinging from his console. For a moment he thought he had been hearing things, but no, there it was blinking on the screen. Feverishly, he scanned over the contents of what the database had found, eyes alert and lips wordlessly and quickly mouthing the contents.

"Could it be...?" he said in a hushed tone. "Yes, yes, yes... Everything connects. This is very unusual, but if it's true... Must get to the Citadel immediately...!"

* * *

Shepard hovered her hand over the control board but didn't hurry to press it. There was going to a lot of chastising, most likely. She didn't really feel enthusiastic to hear it but supposed that this was probably important. The Council had been sure to have as little to do with her as possible once they learned of her association with Cerberus. Nasty politics needed to be avoided, after all. Bracing herself with a deep breath, she tapped the button.

The three Councillors that she had been so accustomed to seeing in her early days as a Spectre flickered into her vision, now accompanied by Councillor Anderson. This was the first holo conference she would be participating in with him present. If even just a little, his being there made things a little less agitating. It was nice to know you had someone on your side, even if it rarely meant much to the other Councillors. Shepard didn't even get a chance to issue a greeting.

"Shepard. What were you thinking sending that pod here?" the Turian Councillor demanded to know.

"I thought-"

"Apparently not," interjected the Salarian Councillor. "If you had been thinking you might have made sure it was more secure."

"Now, listen-"

"Shepard, I am afraid the situation you have initiated by bringing this being to the Citadel is quite dire," said the Asari Councillor, trying to maintain her calm but seeming on the edge of losing it.

"Shepard," Anderson managed to finally get a word in. "The pod you found on Earth opened shortly after it arrived. The creature that was being kept inside has escaped and is wreaking havoc all over the Citadel." Shepard could only stare at Anderson blankly while her brain numbed with disbelief. She briefly wondered who she had pissed off to become inadvertently involved in such disastrous business all the time. The situations she threw herself into intentionally; she would take the repercussions gladly – but all this? "What's got everyone in a frenzy, however, is the fact the Keepers have started to move."

Shepard snapped back to attention. "What?"

"They've all left their stations," the Turian said with a sharp gesture of his talons. "What are we going to do if the Citadel starts malfunctioning because they aren't tending to it?"

"We don't know what caused them to abandon their posts, but we assume it had something to do with the creature. We are officially summoning you to the Citadel. As a Spectre and as the one responsible for finding the pod, you are going to be held accountable for addressing this problem," the Asari said.

"Please, just come as quick as you can," Anderson added, a light pleading tone behind the sound of his voice. The signal cut off and Shepard stood in shock.

"Joker...?" she finally managed to find his name.

"Commander...? Are you okay?" Joker asked, obviously put off by the tremulous nature of her voice. Shepard cleared her throat to muster a more authoritive tone.

"As great as the day I was spaced. Set a direct course for the Citadel. We need to get there...ASAP."

"Aye, aye," Joker said, giving a breath of confusion. Shepard left the briefing room to gather her crew and suit up. With the way things sounded like they were going on the Citadel, they would need all preparation they could get. She still had no idea what was in that pod, and thus no idea of what to expect. It was apparently enough of a threat to have the Council in a tizzy. Having the entire Citadel in a riot would be utter chaos. After the whole mess with Saren and Sovereign all the inhabitants were already on edge and this certainly was not going to help their paranoia. They would have to move in quick and subdue this thing as quickly and efficiently as possible. Shepard only hoped they wouldn't be too late.

* * *

When the Normandy reached the Citadel, it was obvious there was something awry. There were more military ships present than normal when they moved to dock; backup more than likely. No one was taking chances anymore. As Shepard and her crew disembarked the ship, she turned to face them.

"We don't know what we're up against, here, people! Mordin and Legion, come with me. Everyone else, split into teams of three and take different sectors of the Citadel. We need to find this thing and put it down before things get messy. Do your best not to spook the civilians any further! Move out!" The crew scattered and separated while Mordin, Legion, and Shepard headed for C-Sec Headquarters. Shepard became slightly spooked when she noticed that the Keepers were, in fact, missing from where she normally saw them. Normally, they were just like any other part of the scenery but now their absence made the Citadel felt foreign.

They reached C-Sec quickly enough and immediately ran into Captain Bailey who looked more than a little flustered.

"Shepard," he said as she entered. "I imagine you're here to deal with the alien?"

"Yes," she replied. "I came to see if you have any idea of where it is right now. I have my team scouring the Citadel, but thought you might have caught something on surveillance."

"Could be, but I couldn't tell ya for sure," he replied, shrugging his shoulders a little. "We've caught glimpses, but it's movin' so fast it's out of one sector and into another before we can blink."

"Do you have any footage recorded – anything I can look at to get an idea of what this thing is?" she insisted. Bailey nodded and moved to sit at his terminal, pulling up previous surveillance footage and scanning until he managed to find what may as well have been a smudge on the camera. Shepard looked at it and squinted. The camera had caught something, but its speed had prevented it from being clearly captured on the video. She shook her head. "Thanks anyway... Any clue what woke it up?"

"Not a thing," Bailey replied. "'Course, I don't hear what's goin' on up there. All I know is all of a sudden people are in a panic like we're being invaded."

"Alright, thanks. We're going to go check out the Presidium. Keep an eye out and let me know if you see anything new." Bailey nodded and Shepard moved to start her own team's search.

"Has anyone spotted anything?" she called into her comm.

"Nothing yet. Just a lot of panicked people," came Garrus' reply.

"This could just be some fuckin' goose chase. The thing could have left already," Jack added.

"Even so, we need to get everything under control," Shepard replied.

"Shepard, must speak with you," Mordin spoke as they moved. He had been trying to speak to her ever since they started gearing up but their conversation had always been interrupted. With her adrenaline pumping blood into her ears, she wasn't sure she had the mind to hear whatever it was. It was Mordin, however, and if he kept insisting it must have been important.

"Talk, Mordin. Just keep moving," she said.

"Shepard?" Joker's voice interrupted over her comm.

"Joker? What is it?"

"Um, we've got a situation here."

"At the Normandy? What's going on?"

"Uh, well, you know the Keepers? They seem to be congregating in the docking bay." Shepard tried for a moment to register this, but then decided it wasn't going to happen.

"Just stay put. We'll be right there!"

* * *

"Shepard. Really. Must. Speak to you," Mordin emphasized as they raced to the docking bay. Shepard glanced over her shoulder at him and was about to respond when they passed through the doors. Mordin and Legion stopped in their tracks and Shepard watched the Salarian's jaw go uncharacteristically slack. Puzzled, she turned to look ahead of them and her eyes went wide. Keepers. Lots of them. They were all gathered together there on the docking strip as if going on parade.

"What in the-?" She spoke quietly into her comm, "All teams report back to the Normandy. Now." She surveyed the crowd of Keepers warily and then looked back to Mordin. "There was something you wanted to tell me?"

"Found source of metal material," Mordin said, snapping back to reality. "Not direct source, but connection. Metal is associated with unknown DNA, but goes through many, many pathways and genetic similarities..."

"Mordin, please just get to the point," Shepard pleaded stressfully.

"Keepers," Mordin bluntly. Shepard's eyes darted between him and the horde before her, not quite making the connection. "Metal comes from planet that was home to lifeforms that are genetically similar to the Keepers."

"The Keepers?" Shepard emphasized, the images in her head of the frenzied robot not meshing with the quiet, somewhat dormant Keepers.

"How?"

"Do not know, but genetic strands do not lie," Mordin replied. "The key could be-"

"STAY BACK!"

It was like the loud demand came of nowhere, but when the three turned their attentions back towards the Normandy they found something quite unusual there to greet them. Standing on the other side of the masses was a rather short, green skinned individual. A pistol of unknown make was in his gloved hand and he had it poised at the Keepers. The Keepers weren't phased by his aggressive behavior, and moved to swarm him. The little creature screamed and fired his gun, a laser emitting from the barrel. A few of the Keepers squelched and moved off him, allowing him a chance to break through and run into Shepard.

"Out of my WAY," it demanded, looking up at her angrily. Shepard looked back down. Was this a joke? Someone was playing a joke on her, surely. The insectoid looking creature that stood before her barely stood as tall as her waistline, only the long antennae on its head granting it a few more inches.

"Shepard Commander," Legion spoke, regarding the small thing. "We are to subdue this creature, are we not?" Shepard continued to look at it. This? Was this it? How could this thing create that much havoc? Surely, the Council was overreacting.

"I can't let you pass," she said, holding up a hand, figuring she may as well play it by the book for now. "You are under arrest by the authority of the Council and Citadel Space."

"HA!" it said defiantly. "No one arrests ZIM! HA - AAH~" He fell onto his face as the Keepers swarmed on him again and began dragging him back into their throngs.

"Legion, could you...?" Shepard asked, helplessly. Legion moved forward and pushed between the Keepers, reaching in and plucking the little alien out by the thick black jacket it was wearing. He scowled at Legion and tried to beat on him, but failed to reach. "Let's take him back to C-Sec and get this mess handled."

"UNHAND ME!" the alien continued to yell. Unexpectedly, something flew out from beneath the long coat he wore and fired a bright red laser at Legion, forcing him to release his grip.

"Damnit," Shepard swore, finally lifting her assault rifle at the troublemaker. She had had enough. He looked up at her, narrowing his large, maroon tinted eyes. Long, angular metallic appendages sprouted from beneath his coat now, clattering against the walkway. Spider-like, they lifted his small body off the ground, bringing him above her eye level threateningly. "You've got to be kidding me."

"GIR! ATTACK!" he commanded, jabbing his finger in her direction. Shepard could only wonder what this gibberish he was spouting even meant. Unluckily, she didn't need a translator to find out what he was calling for. Within seconds the metal nightmare she had encountered mere hours before was in front of her, fully functional and ready to ruin her day all over again.

"Oh, for the love of-!" She didn't manage to say much else as the wires and metal claws were on her. Her assault rifle sandwiched between the two of them until she was spared a repeat of the previous events and the robot was shoved off her by a fierce pulse of biotics.

"Take that, you little bastard," Jack sneered, her hand still pulsing with the energy.

"Gir! Get up! Get them NOW!" Zim demanded as his minion clattered across the walkway behind him in a heap. Once again in his proximity, the Keepers swarmed Zim's metallic legs. He jabbed at them with his legs, fending them off in frustration. "No, GO AWAY!"

Shepard heaved a deep sign and rubbed at the back of her neck. She was starting to wonder whether or not she needed to worry about this. One second, it looked like he might be a problem, and another it was like Zim and his robot were completely inept. He couldn't even keep his attention on her for more than a moment.

"Shepard, we need to get the Keepers back to their posts," Miranda spoke up. "The Citadel will calm down the sooner things get back to normal."

"We don't even know what made them move in the first place. How am I supposed to tell them to go back?"

"The creature called 'Zim' most likely caused the reaction," Mordin offered. "The Keepers' behavior only became erratic after he arrived."

"I guess that makes sense... So we have to get him off the Citadel," Shepard sighed inwardly. She really didn't like where this was going. "Joker?"

"Uh-uh. No way, no how, Commander. You don't think I can see what's going on out there? We've got enough crazy on this ship."

"We'll figure it out once we get him away from the Citadel. We'll put him in the AI core in the holding cell." Joker muttered something into her earpiece she couldn't quite make out, but she was certain there was some obscenities in there somewhere. The question was how to properly contain him to get him on the ship in the first place.

"Give me your SHIP!" came the agitated alien's voice again and Shepard felt the pointed barrel of his reacquired pistol pressing against the top of her head. Somehow, in all his shortness, he had slipped behind her and now crouched on her shoulders.

"Shepard!" a few of her crew members exclaimed. None of them had seen him move. Shepard took another deep breath and waved her hand lowly by her thigh to signal her crew to stay back.

"You need a crew to pilot that ship," she said, calmly.

"An invader needs NO ONE," Zim insisted, jabbing the gun down enough to make Shepard wince. She resisted the urge to throttle him then and there.

"Why does he keep yelling?" Tali quietly asked no one in particular. Beside her, Garrus shrugged, the look on his face a cross between baffled and agitated.

"You need to get away from this place. We can take you wherever you need to go," she said calmly. There was a pause and Zim rubbed his chin in devious thought.

"I have an INGENIOUS PLAN! You will be my slaves! ALL OF YOU! And you will take me ANYWHERE I want to go!" he declared, cackling like a lunatic.

"Good god, what is the universe coming to?" Miranda asked, pressing her forehead into her hand and shaking her head.

"Yes. Of course. Right," Shepard said through clenched teeth. She felt a wash of relief when Zim hopped down off of her shoulders and rounded to point his gun at her again.

"Move! All of you! That's right. Get on the ship and NO FUNNY BUSINESS!" Shepard gestured to her crew to follow and almost every one of them couldn't help but stare wordlessly at their tiny "captor" in disbelief as they boarded. "Gir!"

"SIR!" the robot bounded back to its master's side and saluted dutifully.

"Get on the ship and keep an eye on our prisoners!" Zim commanded. The robot, Gir, flounced about and eventually crashed through the doorway, causing a few screams from the crew members inside.

Zim holstered his weapon and rubbed his gloved hands together with a grin that appeared to spread ten miles wide. With a flourish of his antennae, he leaned back and marched proudly into HIS new ship, marveling at how amazing his plan really was. The stupid aliens had no idea the forces they were reckoning with.

He suddenly realized he wasn't moving forward anymore and screamed at the Keepers that had taken hold of his jacket. Pulling his gun, he fired at them until they backed off and ran into the ship with haste.

The Normandy powered up and begin to pull out of dock. Shepard and Joker watched as the Keepers lost interest in the departing ship and turned, filing slowly back towards the docking bay doors. The plan had worked and the situation had been resolved, but unfortunately they had traded one problem for another.

"Get out! Move! Zim needs no earth-monkey PILOT! My spot! MINE!"

"Damnit, Shepard!"


	3. IRKsome

CHAPTER 3: IRKsome

"Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. Megalomania to an extent I have never witnessed before."

"Maybe he has a Napoleon complex...," Shepard murmured. Both she and the doctor stood behind his desk, hands in contemplative positions at their mouths as they watched the green alien before them march about the lab ranting almost nonsensically.

"Not familiar with this term," Mordin replied, glancing her way.

"Never mind," she said with a slight chuckle.

"Hmm. Must thank you for this opportunity, Shepard."

"Believe me; I didn't have a choice in the matter."

"...pitiful technology I have EVER SEEN!" Zim interrupted, throwing a medical tool in their direction with such force Shepard and Mordin had to move to either side to avoid being hit. It clattered loudly against the wall, scattering datapads onto the floor. He then clambered to stand on the counter and leer at them, jabbing a pointed finger at Mordin. "You are BORING, lumpy headed flesh mass! I demand to be shown the flight controls!"

Mordin blinked rapidly, looking as though he wasn't sure whether or not he should be insulted. Shepard cleared her throat and crossed her arms. She had finally managed to pry Zim away from the cockpit under the false pretenses that she was bringing him to their weapons bay. Mordin had been anxious to get a better look at Zim ever since he came on board, hoping to unravel the mystery of this undocumented species. The Commander figured she could take care of two birds with one stone by deceiving Zim. He didn't exactly seem to be the brightest being she had ever met and there was absolutely no way she was letting him around any of their real weapons. She suspected he might not even know the difference if she took him to Mordin's lab. The result had been about three hours of the green one's ranting while doctor observed his behavior. Unfortunately, the lab was a downright mess at this point, though Mordin did not seem to mind. Zim had a bad habit of throwing things and screaming when he felt dissatisfied, it seemed.

"If you would just tell me where you want to go, we can take you there," Shepard insisted. Joker was already in a pretty foul mood after Zim accosted him and tried to shove him out of the pilot's chair. It didn't help that the robot had seen fit to get involved as well, squealing and giggling as thought it was some big game. Joker had suffered some minor fractures due to the whole ordeal so it wouldn't be smart to repeat the mess.

Shepard felt a tenseness in her chest as she realized she had no idea where the robot currently was. There hadn't been any screaming as of late so she could only hope that meant it was keeping out of trouble. Nonetheless, she made a note to check on that as soon as she had Zim preoccupied again.

"Pfff," Zim scoffed. "Meatbags like you probably would not even KNOW where I want to go! I have looked at your laughable maps and star charts! You have not even come into the vicinity of the greatness that is Irk! Excellent luck for you! If you had, you would have been annihilated already!"

"Irk?" Shepard asked.

"The Irken home planet and, very soon, your DOOM! Once we arrive there you will be imprisoned and then given over to my Tallests! No doubt they have been concerned about my absence all these years – but no matter! This will mark my triumphant return!"

"You're an Irken," Shepard confirmed. Zim stood upright proudly. Shepard mused at how befitting the name was of this annoying thing that stood before her.

"Tallests?" Ever the vigilant scientist, Mordin's attentions focused elsewhere. "Are these your leaders?"

"Do not speak of the Tallests, lump-man! You have no place!" Mordin grimaced at the name.

"Wait. Your leaders are tall? Then why are you so...small?" Shepard asked.

"Zim knows NOT of what you speak of!" Mordin and Shepard exchanged a disbelieving glance. "Enough noise from your noise-holes! We mark a course for Irk NOW!"

"You just said we don't have it in any of our maps," Shepard said, becoming irritated. "How do you plan on getting there?"

"Hmmmn! Unfortunately, since you have removed me from my base and taken me far from my ship, there's only one way! Gir has the coordinates!"

"Gir...? The robot...?" Mordin asked.

"EDI," Shepard called, taking advantage of this moment to discover its location.

"Yes, Shepard?" EDI's holo appeared above the comm panel.

"Can you tell me the location of Zim's robot?"

"The unit known as Gir is currently in the mess hall with Mess Sergeant Gardner."

Great.

"What is it doing?" Shepard sighed, rubbing her temple as she felt a headache coming on.

"Cooking."

"Excuse me?"

"The unit known as Gir is cooking with Mess Sergeant Gardner."

"Um," Shepard paused, at a loss for words. "Can you please patch me through to the mess?"

"Certainly." Within a moment there was a loud squelch of noise over the comm, and then some more of the lunatic robotic giggling. Even Zim cringed.

"Sergeant?" Shepard called, expecting the worse.

"Ma'am? Sorry, I didn't hear you at first! We got a lot going on down here!"

"Damnit, what's the robot doing? Should I call Garrus?"

"Doing? Nothin'! We're workin' on some recipes. Did you know this thing has a blender in its head? Oh! And it apparently also has a deep frier! It's like Christmas!"

"More BACON!" squealed Gir. "Let's make baaacoooon~!"

"Curse that robot...," Zim muttered.

"Okay, I'm not going to even ask," Shepard said, holding up a hand. This ridiculousness was too much to try to make sense of so she decided it was best not to try. "Zim. What do we need to do to get those coordinates from your robot?"

"We will hook Gir up to your ship's navigation systems," Zim replied, rubbing his hands together. For the third time, Shepard and Mordin looked at each other, though there was a distinct glint of unease in their eyes this time. There had been enough problems with the Reaper IFF when it had been uploaded to the ship's systems. Connecting a thoroughly insane and unstable robot did not seem like the best idea. There weren't many alternatives, however, and the sooner they got Zim and his walking terror off the ship the better. All they could do was take precautions.

"EDI," Shepard spoke then.

"Yes, Shepard?"

"Please prepare any and all protective functions. We're going to be implementing an interface with a foreign system."

"I can _**not**_ believe we are doing this again," Joker huffed under his breath. At least he wouldn't feel like he was to blame for what would most likely be a nightmare mess of consequences.

Shepard shared the same unease as she watched the little robot sitting, one large wire protruding from his head and hooked into the console, rocking back and forth whimsically.

"Are you ready, EDI?" she asked.

"Prepared for external input, Shepard," EDI replied. Shepard looked over at Zim, not appreciating the particularly evil grin he was giving her.

"Upload coordinates NOW, Gir!" he declared.

"UPLOADING!" Gir exclaimed, raising his mismatched arms over his head and providing his own rendition of elevator muzak. "Dododeedooodooodeedooo..."

Shepard stared pensively at the screen before them that showed the progress of the upload link. This couldn't be over faster. Her fingertips dug into the top of Joker's chair a little as she prepared for something to spontaneously explode.

"How is it, EDI?" she asked.

"Upload proceeding normally," EDI replied and Shepard released a breath she had been holding.

"So far, so good." Forty two percent.

"Wa wa waaaa – deedle doooo," Gir continued.

"La, la, la. Dum de da," EDI contributed in her usual monotone. Joker and Shepard raised their eyebrows.

"Heeehehhehe!" the little robot squealed.

"Hahaha," EDI intoned.

"EDI, status report," Joker interrupted.

"I have a craving for waffles," the AI replied.

"Your robot had better not be messing up my ship!" Joker warned, pointing at Zim and almost looking like he might leap out of the chair if not for his restrictions.

"It's nothing!" Zim insisted and then crossed his arms, bowing his head and appearing irritated himself. "GIR! Stop that singing!"

"Let's DANCE!" Gir hopped on the console and began to jig about.

"Upload is one hundred, monkey, percent complete, rapid pink buffalo," EDI reported.

"Unhook him from the ship, now!" Shepard demanded. "And get him off the console before he pushes something and crashes us into the nearest planet!" Agitated, Zim grabbed hold of the robot and pulled him from the console, unhooking the wire in the process. A look of what might have been embarrassment crossed his features before they were replaced by the usual haughty expression. He clasped his hands behind his back and marched past Joker and Shepard like a tiny dictator.

"To the Navigation room!" he declared, moving down the hall with Gir in tow. Shepard watched them go and gave pause to consider what a conundrum this Irken was. He put on the air of being in charge of everything even when he obviously was not. He was surrounded by alien species, all of which were bigger and more threatening looking than him, but he didn't seem to care in the slightest. He also seemed to make it a point to insult everyone he talked to. How he had survived for any length of time was a mystery to her.

Then there was the question of why he was dormant when they found him. It might have made more sense if he had been imprisoned by someone, but the pod had been deep inside the base. It was also riddled with what Shepard now supposed was the "Irken" language. Had Zim put himself into suspended sleep? If so, why? He certainly did not seem like the type to just stop his egotistical ranting to take a break for a few years. He had also mentioned that his leaders might be concerned about the fact he was 'missing'. If that were true, shouldn't they have come to retrieve him?

Everything was leaving a very sour taste in Shepard's mouth. Maybe Mordin was starting to rub off on her, but she found herself faced with a perplexing problem that made no logical sense and she wanted to know why. It would be so easy to take the little creep back to his home planet, drop him, and vacate as soon as possible. She just had to remain as uninvolved as possible.

"One hour to arrival on Planet Irk," EDI announced over the comm.

"EDI, have you managed to translate any of those Irken data files I sent you from our mission on Earth?"

"I do not have any results yet, Shepard. There is not any base language that I can compare it to in order to get an accurate translation. However, there may be something of interest to you in the latest upload we acquired."

Shepard raised a brow, elbows leaned on her desk as she sat in her quarters reviewing emails. Zim was currently occupied thinking he was giving orders in the Command Center so she figured she would take the opportunity to slip away and get some quiet time.

"What is it?"

Various new windows began to appear on the monitor of her computer then. Images of Irkens, Zim, and ship specs she had never seen before.

"When I was downloading the coordinates for Planet Irk from Gir, these files were encoded in the same data file. It is probable that they were created during Zim's time on Earth as it seems there are various fragments that include allusions to the human language."

"Have you found any useful information on Zim or the Irkens themselves?" Shepard asked, glancing through the files but disappointed to find most of the text was still in the alien language. The images had to speak for themselves for now.

"From what I have gathered, it appears that Zim and the Irkens are a race of Invaders," EDI replied.

"Invaders?"

"Yes. They travel to designated planets and either enslave or wipe out its entire population. They then use the planets for their own purposes. It appears Zim was sent to Earth for this purpose."

Shepard ground her teeth together a little, her interest in Zim taking a turn for the worse. Whether she could fathom his actual ability to accomplish such an act or not, she was not in the mood for another race with a superiority complex that they thought granted them the right to play god.

"If that's the case, why did we find him in suspended animation? He obviously didn't complete his mission."

"I do not know. It appears he may have lost contact with the rest of his people some time ago. There are records of numerous transmissions going out, but none being received. Then, there is nothing at all."

"You know what? I don't even care now," Shepard said, lifting her hands. "They don't sound any better than the Reapers. I'm getting to the bottom of this right now." She rose from her chair and headed to the elevator with dangerous purpose in her step.

* * *

Zim was filled with gleeful anticipation at the arrival of his home planet. He couldn't wait to report back to his Tallests and see their faces when he showed them how he had captured this pitiful ship of idiots. Certainly, they would understand that he had not managed to take Earth due to his confusion at their lack of communication. He only had the Irken Empire in mind! He felt like it had been centuries since he had seen the wonder of Irk and he reveled in fantasies of how he would be praised upon his return. No, Zim was not lost! Here he was, alive and still as triumphant as ever! Oh, how they would rejoice!

That was exactly what he was telling the bag of wrinkled flesh in front of him and the stupid thing just didn't get it.

"..and THEN, when I AM TALLEST I will make the Irken race GREAT AGAIN!" he spouted.

"Get out of my comm room!" the Illusive Man declared, raging with frustration and nearly spilling his drink. "Who the hell ARE YOU?"

"I AM ZIM!"

Shepard stepped into the holo then and grabbed Zim by the back of his jacket. She looked to the Illusive Man and cleared her throat.

"Sorry. Please excuse me." Shutting off the comm signal, the holo faded and Shepard threw Zim roughly against the wall. He yelled out and looked up at her sourly, clenching his yellow teeth.

"Okay, you little creep..." Zim suddenly found himself face to face with the end of Shepard's pistol, poised right between his large, insectoid eyes. She did not look pleased. "You tell me who the HELL you are and what you were doing on Earth and I MIGHT not make this shot fatal." Zim continued to stare up at her from where he sat awkwardly on the floor, defiant as ever. "Do not tempt me, Irken..."

"Fine!" Zim declared, smacking her gun to the side. "Not as though it will make any difference anyhow! I am Zim, Irken Invader! I was sent to Earth to turn you monkey people and your disgusting worm babies into NOTHING! I would then give your pathetic planet to my Tallests to further increase the power of the Irken race and the Armada!" As Zim watched Shepard he began to wonder if her head was going to pop from how purple and contorted her face seemed to be getting. It might be an improvement, in fact. Much to his dismay, though, she suddenly regained her composure.

"Then you must have failed, Zim," Shepard spat. "Or else why did we find you fast asleep in that base of yours? Last I checked, Earth AND the humans were thriving quite nicely! From what I hear your leaders even stopped responding to your calls!"

"Nonsense!" Zim argued, feeling a knot of rage build in his squeedly-spooch. "We merely lost communication! Your stupid HUMAN planet makes it near impossible to set up a proper base of operations! Your IDIOTIC atmosphere probably created too much INTERFERENCE! I was merely in that pod to await the imminent arrival of the Armada! I did not want to have all the fun MYSELF, even though I could have wiped you out at ANY TIME!" He crawled to his feet and sneered up at her. "And besides it's none of your BUSINESS!"

"We have arrived, Shepard," EDI's voice rang over the comm, interrupting them. Zim kept his eyes locked on hers, not trusting her to refrain from shooting him.

"Get off my ship...," she hissed, shoving him forward with her gun. He grunted and grimaced, but did as he was told. The sooner he was rid of these wastes of galactic space, the better.

* * *

Zim looked rattled, Shepard noticed, and was smugly glad for it. It was about time the little short-stack got knocked down a few pegs. Maybe she had finally managed to scare him. They stood in the cockpit, looking down at the vibrantly blue planet before them. For all of Zim's claims, it didn't seem so great. Where was the Armada he spoke of? Where was this giant army? They hadn't even been hailed when they entered the planet's space. It could be that they were heading into an ambush, but somehow she doubted it. The little alien was all talk after all.

"No need to waste much time here. We'll take the shuttle down to escort Zim and his robot off the Normandy and then we're out of here," Shepard said. "Joker, keep an eye out for anything strange. We should be back shortly."

"Aye, aye, ma'am," Joker acknowledged, not holding back one inch of his relief at Zim's departure.

Shepard boarded the shuttle, bringing Legion and Kasumi along for support, though she hoped there would be no need for it. Legion seemed to be the only one who could handle Gir if he got out of control, and Kasumi's stealth skills would prove useful if they found themselves in an unexpected fight. As they descended through Irk's atmosphere, it was soon discovered that the planet itself was not the blue they had viewed from space. In fact, the blue color came from the most massive cityscape Shepard and her teammates had ever seen. If there was ground beneath the buildings and structures you could not see it. Everything was crammed together so tightly it gave the appearance that that Irk had no flat land and was instead jagged like a blooming crystal.

The Commander tore her gaze from the view for a moment to look at Zim who stood in his seat, hands and face pressed to the glass of the shuttle window. Gir sat beside him, merely enjoying the ride and remaining unusually mellow.

"Not much longer, Zim," Shepard broke the silence. She saw the Irken's antenna twitch.

"Heh, YES!" he replied, though did not turn around.

"Seems awfully quiet. I haven't seen so much as a cruiser since we got here. Not to mention I can't see a bit of activity down there," Kasumi noted, peering out her window.

"I am not detecting any lifeforms below," Legion added.

Shepard narrowed her eyes a little and looked for herself. It did seem eerily quiet. That didn't bother her nearly as much as Zim's sudden lack of enthusiasm.

"We'll land over there and take a look," she said, indicating what was probably used as a landing pad for small ships. There were about three small vessels parked there now, but upon landing they, too, proved to be empty. Once the shuttle had opened its doors, Zim lept out to check them himself. Shepard sat in the shuttle and watched him scurry between the small pod like ships.

"Shepard, don't you think this is peculiar?" Kasumi said, leaning forward to speak quietly to the Commander. "It was like he expected us to be attacked the moment we arrived, and now we find nothing?"

"It may be pertinent to investigate further," Legion added. "This is very similar to what occurred with the Collectors, is it not?" Shepard wanted to deny it, close the doors, and book it back to the Normandy, but she couldn't lie to herself. They had destroyed the Collectors and their base so it was unlikely that they were involved if this was a recent event. The complete lack of life and remains of everything else screamed that it was. And what now? They had brought Zim here to leave him. Could she, in her better conscience, abandon him on an empty planet, despite how horrendously irritating he was?

No. She didn't know that all the Irkens were gone. Maybe they just weren't at that exact location. The next best thing to do was to investigate and then decide what to do from there. Begrudgingly, she climbed out of the shuttle with Kasumi and Legion close behind.

"Zim," she spoke as they approached the Irken. "Where are the rest of the Irkens?" Zim had his back to them, his hands clenched into small fists. There was a pause before he turned to face them with a familiar look of distaste.

"They're here! They're merely, uhm, preparing a surprise party for my return! YES!" Without hesitation, he turned and began to run into the building that was attached to the landing space. Gir and the three squadmates did the same. Every new room they entered was loud with the echoes of their footsteps. Large monitors near the ceilings broadcast nothing but silent static.

"My Tallest? MY TALLEST?" Zim nearly chanted as he ran from room to room, building to building along extensive walkways. Shepard and her crew barely had time to admire the alien scenery as his searching became more frantic and he sprouted up on his metallic spider-like legs to move faster. He continued to call out the names of his leaders loudly, the sound emphasized in the emptiness of the city.

Zim had paused to call out some more, Gir chiming in with his own shrill voice while Shepard and Kasumi had to stop and catch their breaths from trying to keep up.

"ZIM!" Shepard managed between breaths. "They OBVIOUSLY aren't here!" The Irken seemed to ponder this a moment before coming up with a new explanation.

"Of course! They are probably out conquering planets right NOW! How silly of me! The control brains will know where they are! They will know where everyone is!" He turned and sped past them in the opposite direction now. With a huff, Shepard turned to follow with her teammates not far behind. They soon came to a large pavilion with a dome that towered high above them all. Zim burst into the doors as soon as he reached them, and then one of the shrillest, endless shrieks sounded through the air. Startled, Shepard rushed to catch up. She crashed through the doors with her weapon at ready and Kasumi and Legion close behind. In the middle of the pavilion floor, Zim was on his knees, his clenched hands above him with his head tilted back in the unbelievable wail.

Before him was a very large structure, flanked by two smaller, similar ones. They looked like they should be holding something very large in their metallic grasps, but whatever they were had been removed. Dust and decay littered the room. Whenever they had been taken, it had been long ago.

"Zim...?" Shepard asked cautiously, when his vocal cords had finally given out from the scream. "What is this...?"

"The Control Brains!" Zim found his voice easily enough once more. "GONE!" He came to his feet again and turned to face them, fury in his eyes. "Who would do this? Who would DARE to DESTROY the foundation of the IRKEN EMPIRE?"

Shepard almost didn't say it. Everything inside her begged her not to. The Irkens appeared no better anyway; why should Zim or his race be given any more of a chance for what they had done? But that was the difference. Zim and his race were a problem in their own right, but now they were victims too, just like all the others. She had said before that she would take her allies where she could get them. Where should she draw the line? Was there even a line that could be seen in situations like this?

"Reapers," she felt herself say before she thought it.

"What?" Zim spat.

"Reapers!" Shepard repeated, a little angry at knowing she had to share this knowledge with him or feel forever guilty about it later. "They come in and do what the Irkens do, except they don't leave any trace of it! They swoop in, harvest a planet, and then leave it behind! They probably took everyone here AND your Control Brains."

Zim stood, the most quiet she had seen him since their impromptu meeting on the Citadel.

"So, what do we do?" Kasumi finally asked, breaking the thickness of the silence once more.

"I'll find the Massive," Zim growled lowly. "And I'll destroy them."


	4. Mysterious Mysteries

CHAPTER 4: MYSTERIOUS MYSTERIES

Despite her desire to remain firmly apart from anything involving the Invader, when it came to the Reapers Shepard's sense of purpose overwhelmed anything else. Zim's outlandish behavior caused her potential sympathy for his situation to dwindle, but she still ordered her team to follow him as he sped on his metallic appendages towards the consoles in the shell of the control room. It was possible he might uncover more clues about the Reapers or, at least, provide an idea as to where they were and what they were doing now. A sour feeling settled in her stomach at the thought of what they might do with the Irken technology or genetic material.

When he reached the main console,Zim reached behind himself, patting his back for something and then gave a frustrated growl. Jerking about on his synthetics, he wrenched the black garment from his shoulders and tossed it aside. The slick black fabric created a clean smear as it skirted across the dusty floor. The flurry only had Shepard's attentions for a moment before Kasumi silently tapped her elbow, causing her to return her gaze to the Irken. Without the jacket enveloping his small figure she could see where his secondary set of legs protruded from an oval shaped pod adorning his back. The pod was decorated with smaller ovals of a different color that matched Zim's uniform and one of them opened up when his pointed fingertips reached back to touch it. From inside, he extracted a long wire which he planted firmly into the computer before him.

"Are we certain that he's an organic lifeform?" Kasumi spoke quietly. It was more out of habit than need since Zim's focus was laid firmly on his task at hand. It was the first time he had put his attention on anything for longer than ten minutes without getting distracted.

"Partially," Legion replied after performing a quick scan. "The mechanism located on his back is synthetic, although it appears to be firmly connected via a small inner network to central nervous system." The concept was certainly something new to the Commander, though she supposed it was simply a more extreme version of cybernetics.

The monitors above Zim only flickered with static once or twice so it was hard to tell if he was getting anything from the machine at all. The unusually quiet ramblings from his mouth did not give much hint either. It was only when he finally tore away from the computer that they knew, the cord retracting like a tendril back into the pod and spider-legs scraping against the floor so hard they left tears in the metal surface. The deranged grin on his face only added to the idea that he was utterly mad.

He sped off past them with Gir in tow as if he had either decided to ignore their presence or had forgotten it completely. Shepard spared no moment and followed him with Legion close behind. Kasumi lagged behind only momentarily before her feet silently carried her out behind them. Having grown used to the thief's soundless maneuvering, Shepard did not notice her pause and merely trusted that she was there.

Zim had not gone far. They found him out at the docking platform, once again screaming in frustration. He pounded on the panels of the small ships as he lept from one to another.

"The vehicles are not functioning," Legion offered an explanation to his confused teammates. "They have deteriorated with age." It didn't seem to be a concept that Zim was willing to accept. He smashed his fists against the controls, yelled what could only be considered obscenities in a language no one was familiar with, and even went so far as to blow one of the ships completely off the platform with lasers from the tips of his metallic legs. There was a very faint exploding noise a couple of minutes later, smoke billowing from below them.

"Shepard...," Kasumi prompted. It would be easy to just leave Zim here where he could take out his frustration on every bit of what was left of his civilization and not be a threat to anyone. He would have no way off the planet once they left him. With everything so old and in disarray, he would more than likely wind himself into a fury and either destroy himself, go insane (well, moreso), or die. There were so many moral dilemmas in the universe; Shepard just wondered why she found herself at the forefront of 85% of them.

"Invader Zim!" she finally called out to him. He turned to look at her with a rather dangerous glint to his large eyes. It was small slivers of moments like this that it seemed that he might actually be something to worry about.

"Enough! There is nothing left for you here! You need to focus your rage on the Reapers and that is exactly what we are doing."

The Irken whirled and skittered towards her and was face to face with her in the half-blink of a human eye.

"You will get no chance to destroy these Reapers, human!" he seethed. "Once I have The Massive, I will make sure there is not even a disgusting little SPECK of them LEFT!"

"You aren't getting off this planet on your own. None of your ships work!" Shepard pointed out. "You can come back with us to the Normandy and I will try to help you find...'The Massive', or you can stay here and rot! I'm only going to make this offer once, Irken, so you had better take a moment to think about it nice and clear."

Shepard had been in a lot of stare-downs and she found that she tended to lose track of time while in one. She was not sure if this was her longest or shortest, but for a timeless moment she and Zim played to see who would blink first. There was no doubt that the Irken had a very deep distaste for any race but his own and an even deeper pride that disallowed him from taking help from anyone. Shepard narrowed her eyes a little bit in the challenging gaze.

"Do you know where it is?"

"Of COURSE I know where it is, insolent worm-baby!" The sound of his childish name-calling allowed Shepard to slowly release the breath that had hitched in her throat. With the silence broken, he finally turned his eyes from her and retracted the legs back into the pod on his back. He was a lot less intimidating at his normal height.

"But that is NONE of your business!"

"So are you going to come with us, or not?" she prodded, ushering her teammates towards the shuttle.

Zim crossed his arms with a defiant tilt of his head.

"Fine," Shepard said, sliding into her seat on the vehicle and getting ready to close the doors.

"FIELD TRIP!" squelched a high voice from beside her. She glanced over to see Gir firmly planted in the seat beside her. He waved a disproportionate arm awkwardly out at Zim. "Bye, bye! Gooodbyyyye!" Zim clenched his fists at his sides and marched towards the shuttle.

"Gir! Get out of there, now!" he demanded, jabbing a finger at the platform in a deliberate 'here!' motion. It almost seemed as though Gir pouted then – if robots could pout. Zim's eyes narrowed. "NOW!"

"AHHHH!" Gir screamed, throwing a tantrum in the seat. His mechanical tendrils and wires firmly latched to the seat. Enraged and embarrassed, Zim grappled at him and tried to pull him out by force while Shepard made a careful attempt at unhinging him with her foot.

"Do what your master says, Gir!" she insisted. "Damnit!" Gir wrapped one of his wires about her leg to use her as leverage. She just could NOT stay untangled from this robot!

"Is an intervention in order?" Legion asked as he and Kasumi sat in the back, watching the odd tug of war before them.

"It might be best to let them work this out themselves," Kasumi replied with a small, bemused hum in her throat.

"Let go of me, death trap!" Shepard growled, starting to pistol whip Gir in the head now. The little robot would not be convinced by either party, however, and promptly reached out with a clawed hand to grasp Zim by his antennae and flung him through the door into Shepard's lap. His other hand wound disjointedly to smack the control panel and close the doors and send the shuttle on autopilot back to the Normandy.

"NO!" Zim declared loudly until Shepard shoved him out of her lap and onto the floor. Gir merely pulled back his wires and sat with his hands politely in his lap, letting out a delighted cackle.

* * *

"Okay. What part of 'leaving the crazy alien and robot on the planet' did you decide NOT to disclose to me, Commander?" Joker asked, obviously quite irritated with the turn of events.

"I know, I know! But things are different. His race was taken by the Reapers, Joker!" Shepard tried to rationalize.

"We don't know that! They could have wiped themselves out by being so annoying, all their heads exploded! It could happen!"

"Just bear with me, okay? There might be something here we can take advantage of," she replied, feeling a headache coming on.

"Just keep him out of my cockpit."

"Shepard," EDI chimed in, much to Shepard's relief.

"Yes, EDI?"

"Kasumi has requested your presence in her chambers." Strange, Shepard thought, though she wasn't about to pass up an excuse to get away from Joker and his bad mood. She decided it was best not to bid him farewell since he had a habit of getting into those 'last word' wars when he was feeling obstinate. Of course, they only went on so long because she was just as bad at losing them; best not to start that ball rolling.

Making her way to port, Shepard entered Kasumi's dwelling. As to be expected it was one of the more peaceful and quiet places to be, possibly only second to Samara's. Kasumi had a full bar, however, and that automatically trumped just peaceful and quiet to Shepard any day. The master thief was lounging on the couch where she was normally found between missions.

"Ah, Shepard. Thank you for coming," she said with a mischievous smile beneath her hood.

"No problem, Kasumi. I admit I'm a little surprised. You usually don't call me down here," she admitted, brushing a lock of her crimson red hair behind an ear.

"That's true, I suppose," Kasumi said. "But I have a very good reason for it, I promise."

"What's that?" Kasumi lifted her head to indicate something laid across the back of the couch, remaining with her hands wrapped out one knee as she sat.

"That," she said simply, as if the word indicated everything. Shepard approached the couch and picked up the small pile of fabric. It emitted a fine dust cloud and she coughed, waving it away. Unfolding it, she realized it was the black jacket that Zim had discarded in the control room back on IRK.

"Why did you pick this thing up?"

"It seemed important," Kasumi said with a small shrug, though the smile never left her face. "I have a sense for these kind of things. It helps as a thief, you know." She paused. "Look at the tag inside the collar."

Befuddled, Shepard did as instructed and folded the coat over her arm to look at the inside.

"Made in China...in 2025?" Shepard said, dazed. "This is a joke, right?"

"Not at all. As far as I can tell it's perfectly authentic. And...well...," she trailed off and simply raised her hands in a gesture of 'master thief here'.

"160 years? What the hell is Zim doing with an almost 200 year old coat from China?"

"That's exactly what I thought you might want to ask," Kasumi said with a grin. "I don't like to be too curious myself, but I thought you might be interested."

Shepard slipped out the door with the coat slung over her arm, heading for the elevator. She was certain she would find Zim still moping in the hanger with the shuttle. He had been livid about being dragged from IRK against his will and refused to leave the room in a protest to be taken back. No one paid him any mind and simply left him there. Naturally, precautions had been taken and Shepard had ensured that EDI locked all the consoles and turned surveillance on him.

Her prediction had been right and the Irken was sitting against the parked shuttle with his arms crossed looking particularly sour. Gir was not with him. The robot had opted to abandon his master to have more fun with Gardner in the kitchen, and to 'watch the teevee', as he had put it. Zim heard her approach and hopped to his feet to glare up at her.

"It's about TIME!" he declared. Before he could continue the verbal assault Shepard held up the jacket.

"Zim, what is this?" Zim's eyes widened and he reached for the jacket, but Shepard held it away.

"GIVE ME THAT!" he yelled.

"What is it, Zim?" she repeated.

"It's a piece of body armor! STUPID HUMAN!" He leered up at her, antennae folding back with irritation.

"Uh-huh. Zim, why are you wearing 'body armor' that was made in China - a country on EARTH? And who is...'Dib'? Isn't this their property?" She indicated the tag sewn into the collar of the jacket. The Irken's eyes twitched, knowing he had been caught in a blatant lie.

"Fine! It is a stupid piece of Earthanoid clothing thing that I used to wash my Voot Cruiser! GIVE IT!"

"Why were you wearing it?" Shepard continued to pry.

"I wasn't wearing it! I was merely using it to keep my PAK dry in the event of the rains!" he insisted, obviously not enjoying her line of questioning.

"Oh, okay. Well, there's no 'rains' here. I can get rid of it for you."

"NO! I mean! Whatever! I don't CARE about it!" For a second Zim looked panicked and backed away as if Shepard was holding him at gunpoint. His fingertips fiddled about in exasperation, unsure what to do. Finally, he growled and reared up on his metal legs to finally rip it from her grasp. It had taken Shepard by surprise and she stumbled a bit when he lunged, leaning on the shuttle to regain her balance. She looked to Zim, who gripped the jacket fiercely to himself and glared at her. Without a second thought, he whipped it around his shoulders and pulled it on. "NEVER... NEVER touch Zim's things!" he warned lowly, his antennae rising and twitching with rage.

Shepard was undaunted. She had been threatened like this before and it only ever meant that she had hit a very sore spot. Kasumi had discovered something about Zim that he did not seem so keen to share.

"Zim...," she said, calmly. "I will be more than happy to leave you and your 'things' alone. But..."

"No. Nothing else," Zim huffed, stalking away with his metal legs clicking on the floor. "Zim tells no one ANYTHING. Enough of your foolish prodding, human. If you aren't taking me back to my planet, then leave me be."

Shepard stood and watched him retreat to a dark corner of the hanger. She granted his request and left silently, making her way to her own quarters.

Even Zim, she thought as she waited in the elevator. Even Zim had something deeper going on inside him. He was becoming wrapped tighter and tighter in a mystery that even he didn't know the extent of. Shepard didn't know where he was coming from, but she could only imagine what he might be going through now. The humans had suffered at the will of the Collectors and the Reapers, but they still managed to survive. As far as anyone knew, Zim's race was gone. He was the only one left. Tactless, rude, and loud he may have been, but he was definitely not emotionless. All that fuss over a coat said at that much.

If he hated everything as much as he said he did, then why did he have a human garment? It should have been worn and falling apart for all the years it had weathered unless he had conserved it inside the pod with him when he went to sleep. Did the name in the coat have something to do with it? Maybe it wasn't the coat so much as who it belonged to? Shepard felt her mind spill over with questions.

"Who is Dib, Zim?"

Her question was left unanswered in the emptiness of the elevator.


	5. Alienating

**A/N: I decided to combine Chapter 5 and 6, since Chap 5 felt too much like filler on its own. So here is Chap 5 with new plot-thick content! Enjoy!**

CHAPTER 5: ALIENATING

"You don't have to fix everyone's problems, you know?" Garrus pointed out to Shepard as he sat across from her in the mess hall, having lunch. Rupert's cuisine had continued to improve ever since Zim's robot servant had joined him in the kitchen. It would still be ages before anyone dared to ask him what went into these recipes, but as long as they were digestible and didn't taste like the innards of a thresher maw no one saw fit to complain. Garrus rarely ate lunch, however. He was usually far too busy for such a thing. The smell that had wafted into the main battery a few hours ago had changed that. It had smelled like home; like Turian cooking. And so, Garrus had lunch.

"I know," Shepard replied, rubbing her fingertip over the outside of the mug she cupped in her hands. Her head bowed and lolled to one side thoughtfully. "You know I hate having unresolved issues on the ship. It's not good for team morale."

"So Zim is part of the team, now?" Garrus perked up with an almost bird-like cock of his head as he slurped in something that may have been likened to a noodle, but most definitely was not.

Shepard grimaced and sunk in her chair a little. "Well, no." She pondered a moment. That was absolutely like her, wasn't it? It was just like Joker had said; she liked to collect oddballs and make them a part of her team. It had to be some sort of mental disease. Perhaps she should have Chakwas inspect her again soon.

"I feel the need to remind you that his robot just about killed you," the Turian before her said. Shepard smirked and set her mug on the table, crossing her arms.

"And that robot just helped make your meal, there, Garrus." Garrus' bright blue eyes moved between the meal and his companion numerous times before he set the bowl down and tapped his talons on the table rhythmically. Shepard muffled a chuckle and merely grinned, a little sad that she may have just ruined it for him. "At any rate; the truth stands that Zim is now the only one of his kind. Where else is he going to go? They sure as hell aren't going to let him back on the Citadel and god only knows what havoc he's going to start if we plant him in some random location."

"Listen. I don't think I can really help you with this, Shepard," Garrus said, finally. "You're my Commander and, despite all the crazy things you've dragged me through, I do trust your judgment in the end. Having dealt with my own nasty past issues I can say that I'm glad you were there for me, but I know you. I looked up to you the minute we became teammates and we've been to hell and back together. You have to remember that Zim doesn't have that history with you."

"Neither did Jack, or Grunt, or any of the others besides you and Tali," Shepard interrupted with a wave of her hand. "It's part of who I am, Garrus. I see people who are alone and have no where else to go and I feel like I need to give them that, or at least give them the option."

"Like you didn't...?" Garrus murmured, watching her gently. Shepard paused, her gaze falling downward. She didn't really want to remember times like that, back before she enlisted. Still, she felt the truth in Garrus' insinuation and thought about everyone she had gathered around her up to that point. They were all people who had lost something, had nowhere to go, didn't know their purpose, or didn't feel anyone could see what they could. They were all things she had felt at some point in her life and they were all things she had pushed herself to remedy at earliest convenience. It was this ability to relate that had won her the loyalty of each and every one of those that she called friends now. Would Zim be so different? Would it be dangerous to try?

"Maybe," she finally answered, looking back at Garrus again. The chuckle that iminated from deep in the Turian's throat warmed her a little.

"You know I can't tell you what to do. Just...you know...do your best not to piss him off."

"Yes. I'm very good at that," Shepard nodded vigorously.

A pause came before they both erupted in laughter.

* * *

Zim found that he had almost fallen asleep when he heard the doors to the hanger open. He still sat tucked away in a corner of the room, hidden behind a shelf and some crates. Hardly in the mood to be disturbed he lept to his feet and peered between the shelves to see who it was. If it was that blasted human again he felt like he might just have to blow her head off her shoulders. Who did she think she was, anyway? Trying to involve herself in business that was in absolutely NO RIGHT her own. Meddlesome as always, these humans! She was just as irritating as HE had been! Zim's antenna twitched a little at the thought. Stupid...human...and his...big head!

But forget that! Zim cursed himself. The intruder had come over to his place of hiding! Hiding? What, no! Zim was not hiding! Zim did not HIDE! He was merely-!

"Keelah!" came a shriek. Zim screamed and crashed into the crates behind him, causing them to bury him under their weight.

Tali drew her pistol and aimed it at the pile in front of her. "Who is that? What are you doing down here?" she demanded to know. She raised her arm to shield herself from the onslaught of boxes as the invader exploded from beneath them on his spindly spider legs. He punted a few boxes out of his path and jiggled aside one that had become lodged onto the point of his synthetic leg. Zim then turned his attentions to the Quarian before him. It wasn't the stupid human after all, just some crooked legged robot creature!

"I demand you remove yourself from Zim's space, droid!" he declared, jabbing a finger at Tali.

"Excuse me?" Tali asked, genuinely baffled at his accusation. She had been called a lot of derogatory things in her life, particularly upon leaving the flotilla, but that was the first time she'd heard that one.

"You heard me!"

"I am NOT a droid!" she huffed, indignant. "I am a Quarian, you boshtet!"

"A Kwar-ee-UHN?" Zim slurred out, half spitting the word around his long, segmented tongue in a mocking fashion. "BAH! A perfectly stupid name for a perfectly inferior being!" He cackled, having thoroughly amused himself.

Tali's trembling fists were the only thing that gave hint to her rage. Her talon flittered over the trigger of her pistol and she barely resisted the urge to lay into him then and there. _Blast it, Shepard!_ she thought. It was beyond anyone's comprehension how the woman they had all come to respect could suffer people such as this. It was only reasonable to think that there would be at least one that would be so obnoxious and cruel that even Shepard's pity would give way. Like Garrus, Tali attempted to model herself after the Commander's example, but in as little as a few syllables Zim had made it clear he planned to be her enemy.

It was something Zim prided himself in, actually.

It was something to note that Zim, as far as hindsight went, may as well have been blind. As such, he never really learned a lesson from anything and was doomed to continue feeling epically and obliviously proud of himself.

"I'll show you a droid!" Tali said with venomous calm. She activated her omnitool and gave it a quick flourish of commands. At her side, a large sphere materialized with a small bright core.

"Yes, yes! I am so _very impressed_ with your pathetic little light show!" Zim spat, his tone absolutely marinating in sarcasm. "Now get ou-!" His words were interrupted as a beam shot out from the droid and smacked into his head, knocking him backward into the crates again.

"Serves you right," Tali huffed, crossing her arms. Having retracted his secondary legs as they became entangled in the mess, Zim clambered out of the pile and tumbled to the floor. He scrambled to his feet and reached up to feel the burn spot on his head with a flinch.

"You know NOT the wrath you have just brought upon yourself!" he screamed, pointing furiously at her, as if he might shoot a laser from his fingertip if he tried hard enough. It was Tali's turn to laugh. The act surprised her a little, but she found she just could not contain herself at how utterly ridiculous he sounded and looked. It was not half as loud or biting as Zim's had been, but it was enough to confuse the Invader for a moment or two. The baffled look on his face, antennae all cocked and crooked, only made it harder for Tali to muffle herself. She was trying so hard to stay composed.

"You will NOT laugh at me!" Zim flared up again, a microphone extruding from the pack on his back. He grasped it and yelled. "GIR!"

Tali's laughter subsided a little as she heard the name, knowing full well at this point who it belonged to. While Zim may have seemed more talk than threat, she had seen the handy-work of the robot first hand. The thought sobered her up quite a bit and her eyes darted around, hand gripping her pistol readily as she waited to be assaulted.

Zim began to tap his foot impatiently as no sign of his minion came. "GIR! Report, NOW!" he demanded into the comm in his hand. "Auuugh! Where IS that robot?'

* * *

"You need waaaaffles! Pooo-huuu-huuu," Gir squelched, waving his hands joyfully in front of him.

"How do you people keep getting in here?" the Illusive Man exclaimed. He slammed his hand down on the comm button of his chair. "Miranda!"

"Sir?" Miranda's voice came, diligently.

"Please reinforce the security on this comm line AND the holo-room, please."

"Right away, sir."

"Awww, you're so cute!" the robot hologram cooed, trying and failing to cling to TIM's leg, merely falling to the tangible ground back in the holo room.

TIM pressed his face into his hand and groaned inwardly.

* * *

"Curse that robot," Zim murmured, letting the mic sling itself back into the pod at his back.

"I don't have time for this nonsense," Tali sighed, deactivating her drone moving past Zim to locate the box she had come to the hanger for in the first place. Zim shifted from foot to foot and clenched his fists, looking as though he might start having a tantrum at any minute.

"Fine! Go! You have survived THIS one! But next time you will not be SO LUCKY!" he insisted.

"Certainly; I am barely escaping with my life," she said dryly. Hoisting the box in her arms, she paused to look down at him as she turned to go. He returned the gaze, undeterred by the fact that he couldn't see her features, and sneered. "I suggest you change your attitude, Zim. Shepard will not tolerate you forever." She leaned down and Zim was almost certain she sneered at him this time. "And if she does not pull the trigger there are plenty of people on this ship that will." Lifting her head high, she sauntered out of the hanger without so much as a glance back.

She urged herself to calm as she walked towards the elevator and pressed the button once inside. The little boshtet could get under anyone's skin in a matter of seconds. She wondered what might have happened had someone a little less patient found him there. A small pang of guilt washed over her as she felt a little gleeful at the idea of Grunt or Jack confronting him, no doubt with a much more gruesome result. She didn't like how easily he had stung her. He didn't even know what a Quarian was or anything about her, so he couldn't possibly know how sensitive she was about feeling inferior to others. Since her pilgrimage she had learned to not let the racism bother her so much, but being compared to a synthetic had rubbed her sorely wrong.

The elevator paused at the crew's quarters on its way down and Shepard stepped on to join here there.

"Tali!" she said. Tali did not like the smile on her face. It was one of those smiles that barely hid the fact Shepard was about to ask her to do something unpleasant.

"I'm sorry, Shepard... Not now," she sighed. "I have to get back to engineering." Shepard's expression melted into one of concern at Tali's distraught tone. She then took notice of the box in the Quarian's arms. She had been to the hanger and, most likely, run into Zim. Truthfully, Shepard had planned on asking her crew mate if she might take a shot at talking to the Invader. He had expressed a keen distaste for humans so she supposed he might open up to a fellow alien. It had been her hope to find out more about him and his mysterious race indirectly. It seemed Tali had taken it upon herself to confront him on her own, if accidentally.

"Did you talk to Zim while you were in the hanger?" she asked as casually as she could. Tali visibly stiffened. "That bad, huh? Well, what do you think...?"

"I think he needs to conveniently fall into the trash compactor and jettisoned into deep space," she seethed and made a hasty exit once the doors opened to the engineering bay.

Shepard watched her go, mouth slightly agape. Tali did not usually harbor such violent feelings towards complete strangers. The Commander had always assumed she had a keen talent for making enemies faster than anyone. In this, she was trumped by the Invader.

Zim was, indeed, dangerous. They would have the entire universe on their tails screaming for his head if he didn't get his mouth and ego under control.

As long as she was taking on impossible feats, she thought, she may as well teach Grunt to waltz.

* * *

It was easy enough to see why Samara had taken the Starboard deck for her personal space. It was quiet, spacious, and the view really couldn't be beat. It was perfect for meditation, something that Shepard had taken it upon herself to begin doing. Sometimes it became difficult to force her mind to silence itself and the Asari Justicar had suggested she learn the technique. Little by little, her sleepless, nightmare filled nights had become less common. For that much, it was worth doing. That, and sparing Garrus unwarranted punches to the head in the middle of the night.

Today's session had developed into more of an open discussion than meditation but, patient as always, Samara did not seem to mind.

"...so Mordin says he is going to send some samples to his nephew and see if he finds anything new," Shepard said with a small shake of her head. "It's a puzzle to me how a race like Zim's could be so hard to find any information about. If they're all like him you would think they would have been involved in a war or some sort of recorded event. They do invade planets, after all."

"Consider that the Reapers managed to continue their slaughter for ages without anyone noticing. The Irkens could be the same. Zim, however, may be all his own," Samara offered.

"He certainly screams for attention too much to be stealthy...and I mean literally," Shepard considered. "I just don't know what to do, Samara. He's almost definitely become a victim of the Reapers and is likely to be the only one of his race left. It seems cruel to just leave someone like that, yet, every time I talk to him he just makes me want to shoot him in the head." Samara looked at Shepard out of the corner of her eye, her head remaining perfectly poised forward."It's not even just me! Tali only briefly ran into him and she said she wanted him blasted out with the garbage!"

"His personality sounds toxic. I have met many similar beings in my lifetime. My daughter was one of them," the Asari replied, closing her eyes again. "Sometimes...it just can't be helped."

Shepard gave a deep, inward sigh and closed her eyes as well. "I just hate to think anyone's that hopeless..." She felt a hand rest atop hers where it lay on her knee.

"When my daughters were given the choice to hide themselves away to live peacefully, Morinth resisted. She felt that she should not have to make excuses for what she was, only that the rest of the world should accept it. The more I insisted and the more I pursued her, the more violent and obstinate she became." She paused, briefly, lost in an unpleasant memory. "Whether or not his behavior is questionable, if you attempt to tell Zim that everything he is is wrong, he could very well react the same way. It is a very dangerous situation to put yourself in."

Shepard let the idea meander through her mind. Despite how much a joke Zim unintentionally made himself out to be, she really didn't want to end up on the receiving end of whatever his worst was. She remembered Morinth and the confrontation she and Samara had with the Ardat-Yakshi. For just a moment, she had felt the slightest pity for Samara's daughter. She was completely unashamed of everything she had done, unapologetic for who and what she was. It wasn't as though she had asked to be born the way she was and, unfortunately, the thing she had become was too much of a chaotic force to let run wild.

"Do you think he might be reasoned with at all?" Shepard finally asked, looking at Samara directly now.

"Everyone can be reasoned with. It's his choice whether or not he'll hear it." The Asari turned her striking blue eyes on the Commander, returning the gaze. "Like myself, all you can do is try. For your sake, Commander, I hope Zim is more willing."

* * *

Mordin's mouth sometimes had trouble keeping up with his brain. In his later years he had just begun to resort to the short, sometimes rambling phrases that the crew knew him so well for. It had taken Shepard a while to learn how to keep up with everything he was saying. Mordin spoke in cliff notes and, if you weren't used to it, it was easy to become lost in the scores of information he shared in a few words. It was an acquired talent to really understand the Doctor. When you finally did, the extent of his knowledge was even more impressive.

The strange thing at the moment was that Mordin sounded like the connection between his mouth and brain had short circuited altogether. When his voice stuttered over her comm, Commander Shepard had prepared herself for the worse. She made her way to his lab as fast as she could, garnering some questioning looks on her way. All she could do was offer a vague passing glance and keep going.

"Mordin!" she declared as she made it through the door, eyes scanning the entire room for the cause of his distress.

"Commander Shepard!" Mordin practically sang, shuffling over to grasp one of her hands in his own. He led her across the room to his lab table with a smile that spread a mile wide. Shepard was instantly perplexed. Mordin was holding her hand in a thoroughly giddy fashion. Salarians were not the physical type and yet here he was clasping her hand between his two in an almost _intimate_ manner. The winsome tone in his voice and the joyful sheen to his eyes were almost rapturous. If she didn't know better, Shepard would have thought Mordin had just fallen in love.

"Mordin?" she asked, her voice cracking a little bit. Mordin's odd behavior making her feel slightly embarrassed for some reason. She could already feel the redness flaring on her cheeks. "What's going on? Is everything okay?"

"Okay? Incredibly splendid!" he replied, finally releasing her hand. "Complete breakthrough in study of Keepers and Irkens! Unbelievable, and yet... believable – all numbers and data very much prove as such."

"Really?" Shepard felt a shock wave of anxiousness and excitement pulse through her body. "What did you find out?"

"You recall that I was sending nephew information found from metal substance you recovered?"

"Yes."

"Before he began his studies at the University, he had a project he was working on. On the Citadel. Was studying the Keepers, in fact."

"On the Citadel?" Shepard felt a twinge of memory in the back of her mind. "His name wasn't Chorban was it?"

"Yes!" Mordin said with a blink. "How did you know?"

"I met Chorban back before I became a Spectre. He had asked me to scan the Keepers around the Citadel to help him with this study." Mordin's grin was positively crooked.

"Cannot thank you enough," he replied. "You may have become a very pivotal part in this. Not surprised. Happens a lot with you."

"Sure seems that way, but never mind that. Did Chorban find out something new about the Keepers?

"How much do you know about them?" Mordin asked.

"Well, the last time I heard from Chorban he had said that the Keepers were bio-engineered and incredibly old. When my crew and I were on Ilos, we found a Prothean VI that told us they were most likely created by the Reapers in some way."

"Indoctrinated," Mordin added.

"Pardon?"

"Keepers were indoctrinated race and, like Protheans, genetically rewritten."

"How... How do you know that?" she asked. Mordin smiled, almost smug.

"Informed you that lifeforms from the planet where the metal originated were similar to the Keepers, yes? Sent information to nephew; promising geneticist. Managed to locate the key connection!"

"So, what is it then? The Keepers were indoctrinated and altered, but what-" Something hit Shepard then. Zim's distraught scream on IRK echoed through her head. The large eyes. The spindly legs. The strange little pack fixed to his back... A pack that the Keepers had.

"No," Shepard heard herself say, shaking her head.

"Yes," Mordin corrected.

"No, that can't be right, Mordin," she insisted. "The Keepers are...ages old! We don't KNOW how old they are! Even if the Irkens had been enslaved by the Reapers, that would mean that Zim is..." Shepard began to understand why Mordin sounded so strange on the comm, because her mouth stopped working properly.

The whole race was missing. The planet had looked deserted for a very long time, but she never suspected it might be that drastic. If it was true, Zim's absence from IRK had been the only reason he had been spared the same fate. According to the files EDI had acquired Zim had attempted to get back into contact with his leaders before going into stasis, but never received a reply. Could it be that they had been attacked then?

"Just how long was Zim on Earth?" Shepard asked herself more than the Doctor. "EDI? Do any of the records you picked up have a date stamp?"

"The first transmission from the base on Earth is dated 2026," EDI replied, appearing on the holo terminal.

Shepard's fingertips played thoughtfully about her bottom lip. "That would be at least 159 years! Zim couldn't possibly go that long without someone noticing him! Except... when did he go into stasis?"

"The last available record in the database is dated 2037," EDI mentioned. "After that, all transmissions had ceased."

"2026... That's a year after the jacket was manufactured."

"Jacket?" Mordin asked.

"Oh. Kasumi found out that the black coat that Zim's been wearing isn't Irken at all. It was created on Earth in the year 2025. Considering Zim's complete apparent hate for everything non-Irken, I thought it was odd that he would be wearing human clothing, so I asked him about it," Shepard explained.

"What did you discover?" Mordin asked expectantly, tapping his fingers together.

"Almost nothing. There was a name inside, too. Whoever owned the jacket before might have something to do with it."

"Hmm. Very possible. Do you remember the name?"

"Dib? Yes, I think that was it."

"May be possible to find some record of the individual. Might provide some insight into Zim's activity on Earth. Would you be able to get the jacket? Might be some DNA fragments on it."

"I'm not sure I could wrestle it off him now, but I'll see what I can do. It's as good a place as any to start. We certainly aren't getting him to tell us anything any time soon."

"Excellent," Mordin said with an almost giddy smile.

"Commander!" Joker's voice interrupted over the comm.

"Joker? What is it?"

"Uh, you might want to get up here...right now."

"Okay...," Shepard responded warily, deciding it was best not to ask. She turned to Mordin and he shooed her off with a wave of his hands so she was out in the elevator in seconds. "What's going on...," she murmured.

"We have arrived at the coordinates of the Massive," EDI replied. Zim's destination! Shepard's feet could not move fast enough, then. Surprisingly, when she tried to get to the cockpit, she found the entire crew of the CIC had huddled in the room. She had to press through them to reach Joker's chair to see out the front.

"Good god..." She found herself speechless as she looked up a mass of metal that rivaled even the Collector's ship in size. Like those around her, her jaw went slack at the sight. It looked weathered, but a distinct insignia could be seen on the structure as they began to circle its girth.

"How could anyone miss this thing?" Kelly asked with disbelief.

"It's...," Joker stuttered.

"It's...," Shepard echoed.

"It's the MASSIVE!" Zim filled in the blank for everyone. The entire crew turned to where he stood behind them in the hallway. Suddenly the center of attention (as he liked it), he grinned quite evilly. "And it's all MINE!"


	6. Unwanted, Unexpected, Unknown

CHAPTER 6: UNWANTED, UNEXPECTED, UNKNOWN

It was eerie to watch just how spider-like Zim was when implementing his secondary metallic limbs to skim across the surface of the Massive. As he went in search of the entrance with Gir in tow, Shepard and her crew remained aboard the Normandy, watching. After a moment he seemed to have located a door, only to be deterred by the fact it wouldn't open. The Commander watched as he fiddled with a panel on the adjacent wall, but to no avail. It was easy to see when something wasn't going Zim's way by how violently he threw a fit about it. Reaching out, he plucked Gir up from where he was twirling gleefully in zero-grav and thrust him at the door. Orders were issued and the robot dutifully began work at cutting through the thick, steely hide of the ship. A large chunk of metal debris floating from their position told Shepard they had succeeded.

"You're really going in there, huh?" Joker asked. He knew it was kind of a moot question but thought that, maybe this once, Shepard had gained some better sense. It was one thing fighting an unknown enemy on territory you were familiar with, and another completely insane one to tread where she planned to go.

"Yes. If there's any way we can get one step ahead of the Reapers, we need to take it. There could be valuable information on that ship."

"EDI told me about the Keepers. If it's true, this is some _**old**_ nastiness you're sticking your boots in."

"No better place to start, really," Shepard said, sounding as assured as she ever had about the choices she made. She had only died once and that wasn't even her fault in the first place so it didn't really count. She lifted the helmet that she had been cradling in the crook of her arm and put it on. Turning, she waved for Legion and Tali to follow her towards the Normandy's exit. If her hopes were well founded and they did find some information on the Massive, Tali and Legion were her best bet to recover and possible decode it. Although Legion was as dutiful as ever, Tali had thoroughly expressed her distaste about coming along. She felt the same unease about the situation as Joker, but also insisted that anything having to do with the Irkens or Zim wasn't worth the aggravation. Shepard dismissed this as an echo of her run in with Zim that was obviously still biting at her.

The three made a short space jump to the inside of the Massive, heading through the only door that was available once inside. It closed automatically behind them and Shepard felt the gravity sink her feet back solidly against the floor. With Zim nowhere in sight, Shepard waved her team forward through the hall to the next room. Although the ship currently appeared as though it had been stripped of life like the planet the ship's systems seemed to be perfectly functional. Lights lined the corridors and monitors glowed and scrolled nonsense on the walls. Shepard quickly took notice of just how familiar the structure around her looked. The similarity between the Massive's interior and Zim's base was uncanny. The Irkens apparently shared a fancy for large, ominous tubing and awkwardly proportioned mechanics. The way they snaked into the walls and unseen shadows triggered and ugly memory of David Archer and Project Overlord. Her stomach twisted into a knot and she prayed she would not find something similar here.

"What is that smell?" Tali asked quietly, reaching up to the filter on her helmet since she could not pinch her nose. Legion tilted his head, not knowing what scent she was talking about since he did not have a sense of smell. Shepard took a moment to take a deliberate inhale. She had thought that she smelled something peculiar but had dismissed it as her imagination. Even with the air filters in their suits, an odd, musty and almost sickeningly sweet smell was permeating the air. Wary, she followed the smell through another door that led into an even longer corridor.

"The source of the unpleasant aroma you are experiencing is likely to be originating from that location," Legion said, pointing down the hall to where there was a large hole in one of the walls. Something had oozed out of the opening and spread onto the floor. Carefully approaching, Shepard's head reared back when the smell became even more putrid.

"What is this?" she asked no one as she inspected the mess. It was a mash of various soggy and smashed matter that came a little too close to vomit than Shepard would have liked. Leaning over the puddle in their way, she peeked into the room. Unlike the hall, it was dark with only the occasional flicker of a dying light inside. The Commander attempted to get a better look by illuminating the room with the light on her assault rifle, but it did little except reveal more unidentifiable soupy substance.

The ship moaned then, low and disturbing. Shepard felt the ground beneath her feet begin to slide and tilt. The whole room began to follow suit.

"What's going on?" Tali asked as they began to slide against the far wall, all trying to maintain their balance.

"I don't know. The ship is moving," Shepard offered unhelpfully. Her attentions were more focused on the fact that the ship's sudden change of position was causing the muck at their feet to pool out of the room. Shepard restrained the urge to barf in her own helmet.

"No need for concern. Substance is non-toxic," Legion reassured his teammates as he stumbled against the wall.

"Not really the point, Legion," Tali choked a bit as the goo encircled her feet and began to crawl up her calves.

"Shit!" Shepard exclaimed as the substance thinned enough to reveal a corpse sliding her way and slammed it into the wall. She barely moved in time and turned her light on the figure. It wasn't like any body she had seen before, gangly and long. Covered in the slime of its apparent coffin, she couldn't tell how long it had been there.

"Shepard!" Tali exclaimed as another body bobbed out against the first.

"What are these?" Shepard asked, incredulously.

"Similar body structure and distinctive antenna suggests a similarity to Zim. Likely Irkens," Legion said, giving Tali leverage to extract her feet from the mess to drier floor. Shepard glanced at the bodies and realized Legion was right. They were larger than Zim, certainly, but when you ignored the fact they were half rotted out (not an easy task to do), they looked almost exactly the same.

"That does not bode well," Shepard murmured. The ship creaked and balanced itself upright, allowing her to move with only minor slippage to the other side of the hall with her crew.

"Perhaps the ship is derelict?" Tali asked, sounding a little hopeful.

"Maybe, though I somehow doubt it. Even if there are no living Irkens we shouldn't rule out the idea of scavengers," the Commander replied as they proceeded to the door at the other end of the corridor and into a dead-end control room. Monitors of numerous shapes and sizes lined the walls, interrupted only by panels with foreign buttons and interfaces at their base. "Our priority is to find where Zim went, but in the meantime, let's see if we can get anything useful off these machines."

* * *

Zim felt there was something distinctly missing as he traversed the empty halls and rooms of the Massive. There were supposed to be Irken drones operating the Massive's many systems. The usual air of beautiful and powerful superiority was replaced by something dull and...stinky. This was not what bothered Zim the most, however, no. What was really missing were the unfathomably awesome reverberations from his own vocal tubes; a sound he often relished in hearing. Why was he being so horribly quiet, he thought. Why was he thinking, in fact? Did Zim not merely share his thoughts with himself aloud? Something was definitely wrong here.

The Irken had never been so silent in his entire life, and yet there was something that was compelling him to remain entirely soundless. Even the tapping noise of his long, PAK legs were swallowed up in the sneakiness of his movements. Where were the Tallests? Where as everyone? Blast! Where was GIR?

In all his making of the silence, Zim suddenly realized he had lost track of the robot who had been tailing him not long ago. That was certainly a feat; losing Gir. Zim knawed on the length of his tongue in his mouth. If he could not hear Gir, what did that mean?

Slipping through yet another of what seemed like a million doors to nowhere, Zim found himself in a room that seemed like it might be worth a look.

"A Datalog console," he finally spoke, jumping at his own voice at first. Shaking off his foolishness, he skittered to the panel in the middle of the room with the largest screen. All of the Massive's records were likely to be stored in the computer before him. Answers to what happened on Irk and to the Massive itself could be right at his fingertips. He pushed aside the empty chairs and lifted himself up to access the interface control. Accessing the data maintained in the PAK at his back, he tried to locate the dates closest to when the transmissions between his base and the Massive had ceased. There was nothing even close. Cursing his misfortune, he scrolled back to the last known datalog available and became completely confused. The date of the final record came ages before the first transmission he had ever sent to the Massive. How could it be so? There had to be an error in the system if it was saying that the Massive had become derelict even before he reached Earth. How could he have been communicating with the Tallests all that time? Certainly, they would have mentioned if something was wrong? All the Irkens would have been called from their targets to assist and their foe would have been swarmed with Irken wrath for their insolence! And yet...he had heard nothing.

"This is nonsense," Zim whispered aloud, trying to figure out how to make some sense of all of it. He then thought of looking up his own record. There were always full dossiers on the Invaders and records of all their conquests and accomplishments. There may have been a clue there. Eager, he tapped in the commands to retrieve the data.

At the sight of his own name and face, he couldn't help but grin, and then he began to pour through the text. His involvement in Operation Impending Doom was there, something he was quite proud of. The notes accompanying the service detailed his military assignment and then eventual dismissal after an 'incident'. Zim recalled that day quite vividly, and rejoiced in it whenever he did, but the Tallests always seemed so wrapped up in the little mistakes he'd made. Yes, he had neglected to leave the planet before activating the fury of the mech he was piloting and, yes, he had killed...well...most of the other Invaders in the act. He was ZIM, though! It was an honest mistake, really! The fires he had created were some of the BEST fires, after all!

Zim scrolled past a long list of offenses that quickly bored him too much to look at them all.

Soon enough, he hit the end of the document and was greeted with a large, flashing set of Irken characters that read "IMPORTANT, CLICK HERE!" Tapping his chin with a fingertip, he obliged and immediately wished he hadn't. Red, blaring Irken scrawled over the screen and may as well have been screaming at him:

DETAIN ON SIGHT FOR IMMEDIATE DEACTIVATION AND PAK REFORMATTING.

"This can't be right...," Zim chuckled weakly in his throat. "Just another mistake is all... I'll just..." His fingertips scrambled for a way to erase the order from his file.

"ZIM." Zim's eyes jerked up to the screen that had just spoken his name. His metallic legs shuddered out from beneath him in shock.

"My Tallest?"

* * *

Shepard and her teammates had moved on from the control room, investigating rooms as they went, but finding little beyond more of the same. The data diving they had previously attempted had led nowhere. The computers gave access to a great deal of information but everything was in Irken and so it was difficult to know what bits would be useful. Tali opted to download the few things that they could comprehend, such as maps and visual records of where the Invaders had been stationed as well as some basic schematics of the Massive. Shepard was glad for the latter, since it appeared the ship was like a labyrinth to anyone who didn't know it well enough. They could have been wandering through its halls for days and ended up going in circles a thousand times over. The only thing left to do was find Zim and see if he had located anything worthwhile. At the very least he could understand it better.

"You know what's peculiar about this, Shepard?" Tali asked, regarding the map projected from her omnitool.

"They should have directional signs in here," Shepard huffed, still feeling completely lost. "What's that, Tali?"

"Look at the external structure of the ship on the schematic...," she tapped up the image. "It looks very similar to what we saw outside, but...different." Despite Tali's dislike for the whole mission, her technological curiousity continued to shine through.

"I guess I can see what you mean... This ship looks more consistent in design... What we saw outside looked a lot more like ...," she gestured, looking for a word.

"A Reaper" Legion said, optics flaring a little. Both women stared at him, struck into silence. Legion seemed to register this as a need for proof and presented his own holo of a Reaper schematic. A small shiver crawled its way up Shepard's spine. He was right; it did look similar. The Massive still retained most of its intended shape but it had appeared as though something foreign had attached itself, something that didn't originally belong.

"Why do you always do that?" Tali gave an exasperated breath.

"I do not know of what you speak," Legion replied, honestly and Tali just shook her head.

"Joker?" Shepard spoke into her comm.

"Everything going alright, Commander?" he replied, albeit clouded with some static.

"So far, but I have a question."

"Shoot."

"You're looking at the ship, right? I'm going to have Tali send you a schematic we found of what it should look like." Following suit, Tali lifted her omnitool again and did as indicated.

"Okay, that doesn't look right," Joker responded after a few moments.

"Now, since you have a better view of it than I do right now, give me your honest opinion. What's wrong with this picture?" Shepard waited pensively for a response, but none came. No matter the cause, it couldn't have been good.

"Joker? Can you hear me?" No response.

"I can't get through, either," Tali said.

"Quiet," Shepard said, softly, turning her attentions to the ceiling. "I just thought I heard something." All three stood as still as possible and surveyed the room for a possible source. An odd, faint metallic scraping noise could be heard circling above them. All guns aimed upward towards the sound, only to be retrained on the floor when the same clatter was heard below. "We need to get out of here... now..."

Shepard backed slowly towards the door with Legion and Tali watching her back as she turned to exit.

"Damnit," Shepard cursed as she realized they had walked into a dead end. The door led to something that resembled a balcony, overlooking a cavernous, deep room. It was the largest they had come across so far. Glancing downward over the railing, Shepard glimpsed something below that looked like a large honeycomb arrangement of lighted circles. They illuminated the belly of the half-sphere chamber below and were flanked by numerous pairs of clawed structures hanging dormant on the walls. Unfortunately, none of it looked like anywhere they would want to go.

"Shepard," Tali warned as the scratching noise emanated from the other side of the door they had just exited.

"Tali, let me see the schematic again," Shepard said and searched the ship's maps for some clue to where a door might be. Locating the correct room, she finally found one.

"There's an exit there, about a story below us," she pointed out across to the other side of the room. It wasn't easy to see at first, meshing almost perfectly with the contours of the wall. The only reason Shepard had been able to see it at all was the fact there was an elevator platform not far below it, its tracks stopping level with the base of the door.

"How do we get over there?" Tali asked. A loud bang sounded from inside the other room, causing them all to look towards the door. An odd, repetitive tapping rattled against the door and as it opened, they all prepared to shoot.

"There you aaaare!" squealed Gir as he stood in the doorway.

"Geez," Shepard sighed deeply, her body falling lax a moment. "Was that you making all that racket?"

"Friend are coming to play!" Gir squealed, clicking his knife-like fingers together, an act that still managed to make Shepard cringe.

"What are you talking about? Did you find someone here?"

"Yes!" He pointed at them, a wire of a tongue hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

"Of course," Shepard murmured. What Shepard didn't notice was that Gir was not, in fact, indicating them at all. He continued to point past them at the figures that where grasping the railing, rising up behind them in deadly silence. Dexterous, thin claws began to slide around their ankles and suddenly the three were face to face with the floor. Armor collided with the metallic panels as they were pulled down and off the ledge. Shepard found herself hanging upside down, screams filling her ears. She realized one of them had been her own.

Instinctively, her eyes flew to her feet to see what had grabbed her and was now holding her aloft. Two large, dark eyes peered back at her and the thing hissed, long tongue whipping out against her leg.

"Shit!" She gripped her rifle, but hesitated to fire. If this thing dropped her she would go headfirst into the ground below. Was this Irken? It sort of looked Irken, but there was something awry about it – like the Massive. One major thing that she noticed was it appeared to be armored and when it opened its mouth the teeth stretched like needles towards its jaw. Though the spider-legs were unmistakably the same, It definitely looked nothing like Zim.

As if her own situation was not terrifying enough, she looked to the sides only briefly in search of her crew and saw things that made her insides turn. The Anti-Irken that had hold of Tali had carried her off across the room and she was screaming bloody murder as it clawed mercilessly at her visor. Even at the distance they were now, the sound in the room echoed enough that Shepard was sure she could hear it cracking.

Legion's captor was making quick work of the Geth, using one of its razor legs to rip at the wires connecting one of his arms to his body. As Legion's wound sputtered and shorted he shot the creature in the head to cease the torture. As Shepard feared, however, once stopped it plummeted with Legion towards the floor. She forced herself to believe he would survive the fall. At the very least he had a better chance than either she or Tali. She needed to get to him, and even sooner needed to get to Tali.

A sharp pain raked itself over her stomach and she saw her own blood spatter onto her helmet when she looked up. The Anti-Irken had cut clear through her armor with its claws and into her flesh. Furious, she ignored the pain and whipped her rifle against its head. It screamed in anger and grasped the but of the gun, wrestling with her until she lost her grip on it. She watched as it flew past her to the ground below.

"That's it, I'm done with you, you motherfucker!" she swore, thrusting her boot against its mouth. Gravity be damned, she would survive the fall. She had to. They couldn't get away with what they were doing to her crew. The beast snarled, black liquid pouring from its mouth where some of its teeth had been kicked in. Shepard swung her weight up, grasping for a hand hold on the balcony just above where they hung. Claws dug into her calves, her armor doing nothing for her, but she pushed the pain aside. Grasping, her fingertips grazed the edge of the railing, blood that had slipped down her arm making things slippery. She kicked her legs, feeling the claws tear at the flesh where they were embedded, and screamed. Her fingers curled around the railing now, though they threatened to lose their grip.

Suddenly, she felt something grasp onto her wrists and, fearing the worst, she looked up. Gir's red eyes gleamed back at her and he wound his wires tighter, planting his feet so hard into the floor that they dented the plating.

"Gir...!" she called. He stepped backward, pulling her along and she struggled with the resistance at her ankles. "It's...not...letting me go!" She spoke through clenched teeth, sweat tricking down her brow.

Gir's eyes narrowed and one of his ramshackle fists bore down through the platform, grasping about until it found one of the spidery legs of Shepard's assailant. Once found, he wrenched his arm back through the hole and Shepard saw he had one of the legs, twitching and sputtering sparks in his hand. The creature below screamed and she felt it lose its grip on the platform, its entire weight hanging from her legs now. Taking the chance, she scrambled to gain more ground and pull herself up, kicking at the monster at her feet. Gir ventured towards the edge of the platform and peered at the thing weighing Shepard down. His head tilted with a loud creak and a snap before he raised his other arm, blades clicking together ominously.

Shepard had no idea what happened. Her attention was on getting back onto the platform and not falling to her death. She didn't care to look over her shoulder and what happened to her assailant. All she knew was that there was a very intense, gut wrenching, drilling sound accompanied by a squish and then a loud crack. Thick black liquid sprayed against the floor to her right and clouded the side of her helmet. Hissing as she felt the claws extract themselves from her leg, she scrambled up onto the platform fully and found that the Anti-Irken was nowhere in sight.

Shepard could barely look at how badly her leg had been chewed up now, and so she looked at Gir instead. He turned and looked at her, the redness in his eyes fading to blue. He crookedly smiled and waved at her with the bloodied hand.

She wasn't sure whether to be horrified or thankful.

The choice was made for her, however, when she saw ten more sets of claws clattering on the edge of the balcony. The sound echoed all around her and for some reason she knew it wasn't just an echo. Scrambling to her feet, she grasped Gir by a chunk of his wires and sprinted for the door.

* * *

"This isn't right at all," Garrus insisted as he stood in the cockpit with Joker. "No communication since the transmission and she's taking too long." He had come to check in on the mission a while ago, only to find that Shepard's signal had been lost and there hadn't been a sign of the team since. Why didn't people tell him these things? It wasn't like he was in second command or anything!

"So what then, Garrus?" Joker asked. "Orders fall to you in the Commander's absence."

"Joker. The Normandy has just received a video transmission from inside the Massive. Shall I run playback?"

EDI chimed in.

"Yes, EDI," Garrus answered, anxiously. The screen ahead flickered to life and after a brief moment of static and muffled noises, Shepard's face came into view without her helmet. The view jarred Garrus as he noticed the lacerations on her face and blood spatter in her hair. His insides raged with an urge to rampage into the ship himself, but his better instincts kept him planted where he was.

"...don't know if you'll received this. There is life on the Massive, but it is extremely dangerous. …...lost Tali and don't know what...Legion. My comm doesn't work. I'm transmitting this through Gir... I have no idea where Zim is... We need help..." Screeching and banging overran whatever it was that Shepard said next. Her attentions turned to the noise and a scream was cut short as the video ended.

Garrus inhaled deeply and then gave a low, throaty growl. Joker decided it was best not to move too much in the raging turian's presence and remained as still as possible.

"I'm taking a team in. We need to recover everyone," he said. Despite his anger, his voice was steady and determined. He was not about to lose his teammates again, much less lose Shepard for a second time. "Get ready to pull close to that entry again. EDI, tell Samara and Grunt we need them suited up and ready to go...now." Garrus turned and headed down the hallway, allowing Joker to release the breath he had been holding.

Grunt and Samara met him near the docking door when he arrived. Garrus hadn't needed to think twice about who he wanted to bring with him. Sophisticated biotic prowess and pure battle thirsty Krogan hormones seemed more than perfect for the out-of-hand situation.

Garrus pulled on his helmet as the doors closed behind them, enclosing the chamber.

"We're coming, Shepard. Time for payback."


	7. Impending Doom

CHAPTER 7: IMPENDING DOOM

Zim could feel the blood pulsing in his head so hard it throbbed. One of his hands grasped at a gash on his arm, willing the blood to stop pouring forth. As he pressed himself tighter to the ceiling of the SIR unit storage he began to wonder what he could have possibly done to incur the wrath of his Almighty Tallest. Here he was holed up in a room with a bunch of inactive robots that wouldn't stop staring at him with empty optic sockets, hoping that he wouldn't be detected. He was on the run for his very life and it still made utterly no sense to him.

"_ZIM."_

"_My tallest?"_

_He had nearly choked on his own tongue. When the large, red eyes peered at him through the screen he should have felt elated. His Tallest was still alive! Certainly, that was cause for celebration, especially when it seemed like their entire race had been wiped off the face of the home planet. Perhaps it was the expression that his leader was giving him; a glare that, given in person, may have incinerated him into a pile of invader slime._

"_I'm so...GLAD to see you're alive, my Tallest!" Zim managed to speak, with only a tinge of discomfort in his voice._

"_Of all the creatures I could have found skulking around in my ship, it had to be YOU."_

"_I know. Quite a surprise, right? I mean – I thought all the Irkens were dead! The planet was completely empty when I got back! You can't believe how happy I am that-!"_

"_As usual, you have absolutely NO idea what happened to the proud Irken Empire. Do you, Zim?" Tallest Red's voice was sharp and punctuated with seething hate. Zim felt himself at a loss. He really didn't know what happened, but it wasn't as though it was his fault, whatever it was. He had been on Earth at the time and had heard nothing of it. Had he known he would have come in, guns blazing, to defend the Empire._

"_You. Of all things, why YOU? I would have saved even the food service drones over YOU!"_

"_Just lucky, I guess?" Zim offered, twiddling his fingertips together, hopefully. "I understand your rage, my Tallest. This cannot go unpunished! We must gather any other remaining Irkens and lay waste to the inferior beings that did this! I will help you! In fact, I will spearhead the movement!"_

_The eyes stared down at him dull and unimpressed. They were difficult for Zim to keep looking at. Even though they were being transmitted to a monitor, there was something about them that struck him as disturbingly unfamiliar. All nasty expressions and words aside, it was the eyes that were making him feel uneasy. Zim recalled everything about his Tallests, almost to an extent that they had even considered it a little creepy how much he knew. They were proud, fearless leaders that upheld the core meaning of what it was to be Irken: to dominate, rule, and sometimes (just for fun) destroy. They bowed to no one and would have obliterated anyone who dared to challenge them. He and the Tallests had seen so much blissful destruction together, practically war brothers, Zim swore. So why, behind Red's familiar tones, did it feel like he was talking to someone else?_

"_I am rebuilding the Irken race, Zim," Red finally spoke, emotionless. "It will be great; even better than before. For the best interest of the mission, I must eliminate all rogue elements. I cannot afford to let a **defect** infect the Collective."_

_Zim jumped as he heard the door lock down behind him._

"_Sit tight. Your doom via the new Empire is imminent." _

When the monitor turned black, Zim had scrambled to find a way out of the room. For the first time in his life, he cursed at the superiority of Irken technology. When the door finally opened and he saw what had been sent to murder him, he couldn't believe it. These things that Red had mentioned were not Irkens. He had no clue what they were but they were DEFINITELY not Irkens.

It had all been a blur as the abominations had flooded the room bent on his destruction. Despite his attempts to fight back they cornered him at every turn. He had nothing to defend himself with besides the lasers built into his synthetic legs. He hadn't exactly prepared to be attacked. It was the Massive – and there should have been no cause for him to defend himself. Briefly, he had wished Gir was there with him. Unlike most SIR units, Zim had modified GIR extensively throughout the years and the little robot was a force to be reckoned with when he was done. Despite the flaws that were impossible to work out of his system, he was the perfect bodyguard for the base and for Zim.

But Gir was nowhere to be found then, and Zim frantically tried to escape with no other option in sight. He had barreled through the corridor once he made it out the door they had opened. He felt them at his back, and was almost swarmed when one of them managed to grab his arm with razor-like claws. As he whirled around he whipped a laser through the creature's arm, severing it. The hand continued to grip him as he moved ahead and only when he ducked into the storage room did he take the time to extract it.

He hoisted himself up between the storage compartments and clung to the ceiling, using his fingertips to painfully remove the blades from his marred flesh. He hissed with the deep sting, and tossed the arm towards the far corner when he was done.

From his PAK he pulled out a small electronic tablet, hovering it over his wound. The panel lit up and scanned the area as it checked for infection. During his time on Earth, Zim had discovered an extreme phobia of germs. Humans were so filthy he could barely stand it and he could only imagine what sort of bacteria these nasty things were carrying. The scan came up clean but something in the finer notes caught Zim's eye.

"I knew it," he murmured in the dark. "How could you do this, my Tallest?"

* * *

"...should synthesize just fine. We'll need to remove this mess, though. I don't need wayward shrapnel tearing up the new soldiers."

Tali couldn't remember blacking out. The last thing she knew was she was being mauled and being carried away from her teammates. The room felt like it was spinning even though the hard ground beneath her said otherwise. A metallic tapping on her helmet startled her and caused her to jolt upright into a sitting position. Her eyes flew open and she found that her visor was so scratched up it almost blurred her vision entirely.

"Ah. It's awake."

"Who is that? Where am I?" she demanded, moving to get to her feet only to find that she was weaponless. A slender metal appendage pushed against her sternum, knocking her back to the floor. She grunted and looked up as a face finally came into view. Initially, she may have mistaken it for Zim with all the distortion in her mask. There were subtle things that were different, though. The eyes were more narrow and redder and everything about it was more slender and slight. Even the spider legs were longer and taller and it was a long shot from the monsters that had attacked them. Was this an Irken?

"Don't get excited," it muttered. "Are you here with Zim?" Tali tried to refrain from shrinking back as it towered over her at a height that Zim could only dream of on his own synthetics.

"Zim?" was all she could say. There was something in the way it said Zim's name that made her think that it might not be the best idea to claim alliance with him.

"Yes. I found him poking around the Datalog terminal not too long ago... and now I've found you. Two intruders...too good to be true."

"I'm sorry...?" Tali said, not sure she understood why that was a good thing. If Zim had been caught, where was he now? Where was anyone? She decided it might be smarter to keep her mouth shut. If it only thought there were two intruders that must have meant Shepard and Legion had not been detected yet. "Who are you?"

"Tallest Red...leader of the New Irken Empire," he said with a wide, toothy grin.

"New Irken Empire?"

"You pick up things quick... That should be helpful," he crooned, reaching down with his fingers to push her head to the side roughly. "What is this...?" His thin fingers skimmed the edge of the jawline on her helmet, scraping the surface. Tali went stiff and did her best not to react. She had no idea what he was doing or why he kept getting so close to her. Her stomach knotted up with unease and when he turned his eyes on her again and smirked she took in a breath and held it. Red chuckled lowly and pulled away from her so swiftly it she felt a small breeze.

"Extract it from the suit," she heard him say and instantly panicked.

"What? No! You can't do that!" she protested.

"Why?" Red turned to peer over his shoulder at her, showing a glint of interest.

"I could die," Tali said, exasperated as she moved to her feet again. She was puzzled to see his expression turn to one of disappointment.

"That's not an issue where you're going," he said.

"What?" Tali felt all-too-familiar sharp hands grip her arms and legs and soon found she had been surrounded by more of the creatures that had attacked the team before.

"Throw her in the tank once all the synthetics are removed. This is going to be a good batch... I can feel it." He clicked his fingertips together and grinned in genuine pleasure as he left her to her fate.

Tali felt like she was waking from one nightmare only to fall into another. Desperate, she kicked and punched and screamed for help. Her cries were cut short when she felt her helmet unhinge and pungent air forced itself into her lungs. She gasped and choked, suddenly feeling nauseous. Her flailing hands gripped at her throat as she struggled to accustom herself to the air. A breath finally pitifully issued itself through her lungs when she felt her body become engulfed in a thick liquid. It was then she realized that she was drowning.

* * *

Legion re-calibrated his optics for a second time until the haze of images before him became sharper. He had lost some function in his partially lacerated arm, but it seemed that nothing else had been irrevocably damaged in his fall. Testing his legs and other arm, he pushed himself to a standing position and surveyed the area where he had landed. There were no life signs visible anywhere around him. This suggested that the enemy had departed the area while he was inactive. The likelihood was slim, due to the severe, point-blank gun shot to its head, but there was no body to confirm the kill. That being the case, the next directive was to locate his weapon.

It had not gone far from his current position. He found it easily even in the dim light of the spherical room. Walking over across the honeycomb of lights, he stooped to pick up the bloodied pistol. Removing the gun from where it lay on top of one of the lit cylinders, he noticed that the light on it had turned from red to blue. The symbol adorning it was also different. He managed to scan the image into his memory banks before something shoved him backward.

Standing again, he regarded the metal arm with an agitated flare of his optic plates. The claw merely clacked its tips together, unfazed, and proceeded to grasp the aforementioned cylinder. It twisted it clockwise and with a small hiss of steam, extracted it from the honeycomb. Legion's previous annoyance with being interrupted was replaced with new curiosity and he watched as another claw came near the first and the two cracked open the cylinder. The act referenced files in his database of how Mess Sergeant Gardner cracked open what humans called an "egg". What spilled forth onto the floor was nothing quite so sunshine yellow, but a small mass of green and slime and goo. The first claw then proceeded to attach what Legion registered as a synthetic pod to the back of the tiny green thing. He documented the procedure thoroughly, and connected how the result was much like his scan of Zim. The pod entwined itself into every nerve and system of the figure and when it finished, the secondary arm charged the limp body with a bright jolt of energy.

It stood directly upright. Large, dark eyes opened wide. Newly born, it was even smaller than Zim.

"Welcome to life, Irken child. Report for duty," a low voice from the machine intoned. The small Irken extended its equally pint-sized spider appendages to scurry across the floor towards the elevator. It paid Legion no mind in the slightest. The task finished, the arms then placed a new pod into the now empty slot and returned to hanging dormant.

Legion paused a moment to stop and then play back the video for himself. Satisfied that it had been documented properly, he turned to head in the same direction the newborn had. The platform led to the only feasible way out. Holstering his pistol he checked his omnitool with only a little difficulty when the fingers on his damaged arm would not do what he wanted. Finding the method useless, he spoke to it directly instead, and hailed any nearby familiar comm-links.

* * *

"Damnit!" Shepard swore as she heard her omnitool fire off some static. She hadn't realized how quiet it had been in the room until then. It didn't help that it startled Gir too and he had no qualms about screaming. Frantically, she shushed him. They had barely been able to get away from the horde of Anti-Irkens after they sent the transmission to the Normandy; the last thing they needed was to be caught now. The only reason they had managed to hide out in the first place was the creatures had suddenly become otherwise occupied, as if they had been called away. She wasn't sure why, but she wasn't about to question it now.

"Hello?" she spoke into the comm, not really expecting to hear a response. A familiar, garbled noise responded to her.

"Legion...? Is that you? God, I hope so. I don't need heretic geth on my tail, too..."

"Apologies. Did not switch out from binary," Legion finally said. "What is your location, Commander Shepard?"

"I'm not sure. Where are you? Are you okay?" she asked.

"Currently navigating through the equipment facility. Minor damage. Otherwise functional. Attempting to find your location via the comm-link."

"Thank god," Shepard sighed deeply. She turned back to the wall of screens in front of her. After some tinkering, she had found that she and Gir had stumbled into a surveillance room. Most of the monitors were full of static but she hoped with Gir's Irken technology she might be able to get at least some of them back up and running. He wasn't exactly the easiest robot to work with. Despite their situation, he insisted that she dance with him before he attempted to hack the network. She had berated him and threatened him with violence but he did nothing but stand there, looking expectant. Unable to bring herself to destroy her chance at finding any clue to the location of her team or their possible exit, she kept her gun holstered and did the deed. Gir was easy enough to please, and after a moment a few of the screens crackled to life.

Up to the point when Legion had contacted her, there had been nothing worth noting on the screens. The rooms remained empty and it did little to even assist her in learning what rooms to avoid. Where did the Anti-Irkens go when they had left?

Wait. She squinted and suddenly there they were, on a screen to the left. At least five of them. They were dragging something. No. It couldn't be!

"Tali!" Shepard exclaimed, slapping a hand over her mouth to silence the outburst. "Gir! Is there sound on these monitors?"

"Nope! I can make some, though!" He then proceeded to create his own brand of muzak for the scene playing out on the screen. Shepard grimaced and looked back to the image, trying to figure out where exactly it was taking place.

"What is that?" she asked as the largest Irken she had ever seen almost filled the monitor.

"Almighty Tallest! Woo!" Gir cheered.

"That's not a GOOD thing!" Shepard insisted as she saw it hover over her teammate. "What is it doing?" Gir merely grinned and shrugged.

"Legion!" Shepard called over her comm.

"Commander?"

"Forget me. Can you lock onto Tali's signal?" she asked, feeling her chest tighten in anticipation.

"Attempting."

Shepard couldn't believe what she was witnessing. Tali had been swarmed and in the blur of the pixelated images she was certain she saw something fly off to the side. The first gut-wrenching thought that Tali was being dismembered flew out of her head once she caught a glimpse of the whole Quarian being dragged across the floor. It must have been her helmet, Shepard told herself. The twisted pit of her stomach surged into her chest as all out rage. They were taking her towards a very large, foreboding construct.

She couldn't stand there and watch it any longer. She had to do something. She had to find that room. Now.

"Legion! Any luck?" she called, flying into the hallway with Gir at her heels.

"Have located Tali-Zorah's signal. Weak, but traceable."

"Get there as fast as you can and secure Tali. That's an order!"

"Acknowledged."

* * *

Tallest Red gazed indifferently at the large surveillance monitor before him where he resided in the bridge. The room was devastatingly quiet all the time now. It used to be that he would be surrounded by piloting drones and staring out into the vast darkness with his colleague at his side, sharing the most delectable treats the universe had to offer. Here he was, though, standing solitary in the very same room, but with a very different outlook on things. It was amazing what an eon or two could do to your perception. None of that mattered now, though. The focus of his attention was currently on the fact that it seemed like there were more unwelcome visitors than he had originally suspected, and they just seemed to keep coming.

"I don't recall issuing a summons for tank fodder," he mused, scratching his chin. His blood red eyes skimmed over the image of the three newest additions of these invading insects. Why were they all so terribly ugly? At least that one had some height to it. Nonetheless they would make good additions to the formula. They would be more helpful that way and less...pesty.

Speaking of pests, though, Tallest Red thought. He hadn't heard back from the small fleet he had sent to tear Zim apart. Why was that? He had explicitly told them to retrieve the PAK and yet, nothing had come. He shuddered to think that maybe, somehow, the little sack of stupid had managed to escape. It hurt his head to think about it.

Best to keep focused on the present, he decided. He pondered the best way to go about detaining the three intruders sauntering around his ship like they owned it. He could send a swarm of the new soldiers to overtake them, but they appeared to be heavily armed. Not that anything they had could really overpower the Irkens, but while the soldiers were powerful, they were a little...slow. It was probably a result of diluting the genetic formula. There had been such a lack of new biological material to use he had no choice but to resort to...recycling. Unfortunately, this tended to make the resulting Irkens more violent and sometimes even a bit crazy. He recycled those ones a lot; couldn't have them running around biting the heads off one another. That was a messy day.

"Ah... I know," he concluded with a grin. Reaching over to the control panel on the main platform he murmured.

"Tallest Purple... I have some playthings for you."


	8. Tallest, My Tallest

CHAPTER 8: TALLEST, MY TALLEST

As Garrus explored the maze of the Massive's chambers and halls, he felt himself becoming increasingly agitated. He ran the Commander's transmission through his mind repeatedly, but had found little physical evidence that a battle had occurred. The tone behind her words had been shaken and uneasy. She warned that things on the Massive had gotten out of control and dangerous. So where was the danger? They had not encountered a single enemy since they entered the ship, nor found any trace of Shepard. It was so quiet that Garrus found himself expecting an ambush at any minute, only to be left disappointed at every turn. Grunt was also disappointed by this, but for a completely different reason.

"I knew following a Turian would be a bad idea," he said, making no attempt to hide his disdain."You said there would be epic battles and a new race to blow up. The Krogans were right not to trust your kind. You are not worthy of Battlemaster Shepard."

"Grunt?" Garrus said, clenching his jaw.

"What, Turian?" Grunt huffed up, ready to start a fight.

"Shut up," Garrus replied, a hint of a snarl sneaking its way into his voice. "All I know is what I saw on Shepard's transmission. I wanted to prepare my team for the worst. I never said anything about 'epic' battles. To be honest, I'm surprised you even knew that word."

"I read," the Krogan snorted. "And I have plenty more words just for you, Turian."

"Be silent, both of you," Samara spoke up. "The last thing we need right now is our focus torn apart by childish bickering."

"How about your flesh instead?" came a fourth voice, echoing through the hallway. The floor between Garrus and Grunt suddenly became lacerated by a long, pointed spike. It retracted into the dark as quickly as it had come. Both the Krogan and Turian took a few steps back from the tear, their attention brought back to the situation at hand.

"Finally!" Grunt declared, aiming at the floor.

"Who are you? Come out now and I might stop the Krogan from knocking your head off," Garrus warned, mimicking the motion.

"Like you could stop me," Grunt muttered.

"That would require you to catch me, first," the voice chided.

"Garrus!" Samara called, biotically pushing the Turian against the left wall as the spike skewered the right. The razor tip just barely scratched the surface of his armor. A low, bemused chuckle sounded through the corridor as the appendage flew back through the hole.

"Samara, do you know where it is?" Garrus asked.

"I only get brief glimpses... Quick hot spots," the Asari replied, tense as she waited for another hint of movement. "Grunt, above you!"

Undaunted, the Krogan let out a loud snort and began to spray the ceiling with gunfire. Nothing but the rhythmic clatter of bullets on metal was heard until his ammo finally ran out. Garrus and Samara stared blankly at him before their eyes turned to the small crater he had, quite proudly, created. Garrus looked to Samara for confirmation about whether or not the Krogan assault had done any good.. Her expression was vague and unsure; not something he felt comfortable seeing.

"You like the big guns, do you?" The voice confirmed his doubt. "Try this on for size."

A hum began to fill the corridor and became shrill as its volume increased. The tone was so sharp, Garrus felt the scarred tissue inside his damaged ear canal start to sting deep inside. As the earsplitting noise reached a peak, Grunt realized the floor beneath him was starting to become exceedingly warm. If not for his thick Krogan hide, his feet may have blistered as he dove away from the heat. The team watched as the affected area began to bubble and bulge before exploding into a beam of red and white that crashed to the roof. The intensity of the shot was so great that the air became hot and stagnant in seconds. When it ceased, a chill breeze seemed to surge past them into the newly formed opening.

"Coward! Come out now!" Garrus demanded, furious.

"Or what? You'll take away my sweet treats?" it replied. "That's a threat I don't like to hear. I love sweet things, after all. Still, far be it for me to deny my adoring public..."

A long, spindly silver leg ascended the newly formed entry and planted itself on the floor, soon followed by three others. The Irken legs creaked and groaned as they lifted the body of their master up into the hall. They looked worn, scratched, and dented but somehow still managed to function. The being that stood before them struck and equally disturbing and awkward chord. It was long and lanky and looked like all of its body parts didn't fit together quite right, as if it had been assembled in a hurry or was part of a passing thought. It also didn't appear to have control of its antenna, which twitched at random intervals on its head. One seemed to be been broken , half of it laying more limply than the rest.

At first Garrus thought it had the darkest eyes he had ever seen on a creature, but he soon realized that wasn't true. It simply had no eyes at all. Empty sockets stared at them above lids drooping with disuse as its green lips pulled back to reveal crooked, yellow teeth.

"Now bow before the Almighty Tallest Purple!" it sneered, skittering towards them with immense speed.

The hallway was narrow and offered little room to dodge or duck. Sliding between Grunt and Garrus, Tallest Purple shoved them against the walls and pinned them there with his rear metallic legs. Almost simultaneously, the two captives raised their guns to fire at the Irken's head which elicited a rather insane sounding laugh.

"Now you see it - !" Purple giggled, lifting his forelegs level with the weapons. The tips gleamed before firing off two searing hot beams point blank on the guns. Garrus's mandibles went slack as he watched the barrel of his rifle turn orange and begin to turn into molten globs on the floor. Grunt saw the same but was quickly sent into a rage, fighting against the leg holding him down. With a curl of his upper lip, Purple rammed the joints of the legs into their faces, causing them to drop the useless melted masses on the floor. He then lifted his head, his eyes half-lidded. "I smell something else here..." His grin seemed like it would never end as it spread. "Where are you...?"

Samara did not deign to answer, but sent forth a biotic blast to help release her comrades. She was puzzled when Purple didn't move an inch. He blinked is empty eyes and tilted his head from the feeling of pressure, but remained firmly planted on his prey.

"That...tingled...," he snorted, an antennae flicking to the side. Garrus marveled at just how much strength the Tallest had despite looking as though his body would fall apart at any moment. No matter how much he or Grunt struggled, the Irken remained immovable. The only thing that made any sense to Garrus was that Purple's legs were the source of his bizarrely strong offense. He had no idea what they were made of or how they might be broken, but he didn't enjoy the idea of dying under their weight. Grunt, on the other hand, was fully resenting the fact that he was being restrained by something that resembled a stick-figure. The stick-thing had to die.

Undaunted, Samara tried to Reave the Tallest. If she could not push him away, she suspected she might be able to weaken him so he would lose his grip. Tallest Purple stood still, irritated, and coughed. She could not believe what she was seeing. Could it be that Irkens were completely unaffected by biotic fields?

"I am getting very bored, and very hungry," Purple said. He coughed, then rasped, and heaved. Something extruded from between his lips, worm-like, and then spewed forth and swung tightly around Samara's form, pulling her captive to the ground. Purple chuckled around the extensive length of a tongue that was looked like a long segmented steel snake. "Wike it...?" he spoke awkwardly. "Itsh new. Stha owld wond wush tekkin away..." He chuckled, on the edge of sanity again. "...win I wuldnt sut uhp... It didunt wike how I scweamed..." A trickle of drool rolled past his lips as he swallowed thickly. The act caused him to swallow his own tongue and to pull Samara closer.

Things were looking dire, and Garrus didn't want to wait and see if Purple really planned to swallow Samara. Frantically, he looked around for some way to disarm the Tallest. His attentions turned back to the legs – the only thing holding him back. They led to the pod at this back; the pod like Zim's. Garrus recalled how Shepard had told him that Zim's pod was apparently connected to all his internal systems. Whether or not the Tallest was the same, he couldn't be sure, but it was his best guess. Edging his arms around so he could reach his omnitool, he took a chance and targeted the PAK, setting the command to Overload.

As the PAK sputtered and sparked, Purple's legs folded up against him and he choked on his tongue. Now free, Garrus took the opportunity to move and assist Samara. Purple continued to spasm, but he had also begun to retract the tongue faster. Grunt took it upon himself to assault the Tallest directly, headbutting him in pure Krogan fashion. This phased Purple further and caused the tongue to go slack and slither limply back into his mouth.

"We-we-we-we-are not pleased!" Purple stuttered, sounding strangely mechanical for a few short intervals. "P-p-p-punishment imminent! Auughh! Get out of my HEAD!" The Irken screamed, thrusting his legs up to force Grunt away. He whirled, and reared up tall and menacing. His empty eyes seemed to bore into the three before him. "CORRUPTION! He... I... We... !" He fell to his natural feet for the first time and lifted the synthetic legs up. The tiny white beams fired from their tips and culminated together in a central ball of heat. It began to grow brighter and bigger as Tallest Purple let out something between a scream and a cackle. Samara lifted her hands to ready a barrier around the team, hoping to the Goddess that it would be enough to hold off the oncoming death ray.

A gunshot sounded.

The beam dissipated and the Tallest collapsed to the floor in a heap, a black substance oozing from the hole that had been blasted through the center of his head. Across the hall, behind where Tallest Purple had been, Shepard stood. She lowered her pistol.

"Shepard!" Garrus said with a relieved breath as he stepped over Purple's limp body to approach her. "Are you alright?" He touched her face gently with his talons, inspecting the scratches at her cheeks and brow. His gaze wandered to where her armor was split at her abdomen, mandibles flaring at the sight of the wound.

"It's okay," Shepard reassured him, placing a hand on his wrist. "It's looks worse than it is. Listen, we need to get to Tali fast."

"Where is she? Or Legion for that matter?" Garrus asked, noticing that she was only accompanied by Zim's robot who was currently prodding at Purple's body.

"I told Legion to find Tali, so he's on his way to her location. I found a surveillance room and saw what I think are Irkens removing her suit."

"You're not sure?"

"Well, they looked like Zim but not exactly. They looked wrong."

"I know what you mean," Garrus replied, tilting his head towards the collapsed Tallest. "Let's find Tali. I hate to think what these things have in store for her...," Garrus said and Shepard nodded in agreement. She looked past him to the Tallest laying on the floor and walked towards him. Black blood had pooled around his head, but she nudged the body with her foot to be certain.

"Grunt," Shepard said, looking to the Krogan. "I want you to take this thing back to the Normandy. We need to find out what we're dealing with. Mordin might be able to give us some clues."

"Hmph," he huffed, not pleased with being removed from the fight, but not about to argue. He grudgingly hoisted the body of Tallest Purple over one of his massive shoulders and headed for the door, making a point to slam its head, none too gently, into the door frame before exiting.

"Do you know how to find the room Tali is in?" Samara asked. Shepard merely jabbed a finger at the robot spinning itself around, giggling, oblivious on the floor.

Samara and Garrus exchanged a worried glance, but did their best to assure themselves that Shepard, usually, knew best.

* * *

Zim glanced around furtively when he entered the Massive's laboratory. So far, he hadn't run into any more of the Anti-Irkens, but his paranoia was as potent as ever. His metallic legs clicked faintly as they carried him through the room, between large aisles of tanks with unidentifiable substances inside. The scan he had done on his wound had unsettled him. He knew by sight that the things that had come to kill him were not Irkens, and the scan had proved it further. There had been DNA residue from the attack that told of something very genetically different. Tallest Red had spoken of creating a new empire, but had he meant to do so by corrupting Irken biology?

It made no sense. It was completely UN-Irken to pollute the gene pool. It was downright filthy. It was...WRONG.

Zim had to know what was going on. What had made his Tallest stoop to methods so below them?

He leaned up on his legs to peer into one of the tanks, eying the peculiar fluid within. Perhaps, he thought, if he could get a sample of the fluid in these containers he could find out what exactly these Anti-Irkens were. He considered how he might get to the opening above.

"Looks like I just can't depend on anyone these days."

Zim felt a wave of shock course through his small body as he came eye to eye with his Tallest. Red loomed over the tank he had just been looking into, holding onto it with his synthetic legs as he bent down into Zim's face.

"My Tallest!" Zim squeaked.

"Fine. I'll take care of you myself," Red sneered, reaching down and gripping Zim's throat with his claws. Zim gasped, legs flailing behind him as the Tallest lifted him up to where he perched.

"What are you doing, my Tallest?" Zim managed to gasp out. "This isn't how we do things! You're contaminating our superior bloodline!"

"YOU are the only contamination, Zim!" Red hissed, pulling Zim so close his breath flared out against the smaller Irken's face. "How DARE you question the methods of an Almighty Tallest, you insignificant slug! What I am doing is rebuilding the empire even better than before; and it will be great, Zim, because you won't be there to screw it up."

Tallest Red lifted one of his fore-legs and dug it into Zim's PAK, tearing at the supports of one of his synthetic legs. Zim twitched and screamed out as the metal length was torn away from him, feeling it deep inside.

"I'll just take you apart piece by piece... Then I'll blast all your bits into space...," Red said with a sadistic grin.

"What hap-happened, my Tallest?" Zim hissed out. "Nothing is the same!"

"I'm not one for monologing, Zim. That was YOUR thing, remember? Never could get you to shut up," Red replied, promptly tearing out another of Zim's spider-legs, and crushing it like paper in the process.

"Please, my Tallest. I can help make the Irkens great again! I am Zim! I single-handedly-!"

"Destroyed every plan and ambition we ever let you become involved in! Not to mention you were responsible for the death of two Tallests before Purple and I!"

"But, my Tallest-!"

"Stop...calling...me...THAT!" Red raged, tossing Zim so harshly against one of the tanks that it cracked and then shattered, showering him in a sickly green fluid. Zim wiped his face to stop his vision from blurring and spat out the liquid that had managed to trickle into his mouth. It tasted absolutely foul. He tried to lift himself up on his remaining legs only to awkwardly stumble. Slipping backward, he fell over a body that had drifted out of the broken tank.

"Now look what you did...," Red said, sliding down into the aisle between the tanks to loom over Zim once more. "Guess I'll make it quick so I can get this mess cleaned up." He reared up the end of one leg, ready to spear Zim through. Zim shielded himself with his arms, as if it would do him any good, ready for the pain to come.

"What in the-! Get OFF ME!" He heard Tallest Red exclaim. Opening his eyes, he looked up to see Legion on the Tallest's back, sending Red into a hissy fit. Red whirled furiously, attempting to reach the Geth latched onto him, but failed miserably. Legion aimed the barrel of his gun at the PAK that he was clinging to and moved to pull the trigger when Red lurched to the side, causing him to blast a point blank hole through the Irken's shoulder joint.

Red screamed and gripped the wound as the arm fell limp and his shoulder spouted blood. Furious, he began slamming his back against the tanks, trying to force Legion to let go.

"PAAARTYYYY!" Zim's antenna perked at the familiar sound of Gir's nonsense, and he watched as the little robot ran past him towards the Tallest. Obviously seeing Legion's antics as some sort of game, he lept onto Tallest Red's head and clung there, screaming and giggling as the Irken flailed about, thoroughly enraged.

"Tali!"

Zim scrambled back as he saw the human Commander approach and crouch by the body that had tumbled from the broken tank. He watched her as she checked the figure for life and patted at its face in some attempt to rouse it. Her head drooped a bit as she kneel there and he thought he saw her shoulders slump. Garrus came up behind her and sank down to her level, looking at the body as well, jaw slack. Zim didn't quite understand what they were doing or what the big deal about the body was, but he knew when looks could kill. When he saw Shepard's eyes again, there was a glint of something he was more than familiar with. She raised her gun and stepped over the body they called 'Tali' and headed for Tallest Red. Her Turian companion followed.

* * *

This _thing_ had to die. Shepard had made up her mind about it. Something inside her raged and would not be sated until he was ripped apart. Tali was dead and someone would have to answer for it. The poor Quarian hadn't even been able to die with dignity, suspended in some tank, completely stripped of her suit, naked and vulnerable. The seconds she bent over her teammate seemed to slow as she frantically checked for signs of life, over and over. Nothing came. Even Tali's eyes...lifeless. They had survived Sovereign and the Collectors only to lose her to this? It was more than Shepard could stomach.

Tallest Red managed to tear Gir from his face and threw him at Shepard, who stumbled with the impact. He bolted up atop the tanks again and then lept for the ceiling, the new orientation allowing him to finally get a grip on Legion with his unharmed claw, throwing him to the floor with a loud crash.

"Don't let him get away!" Shepard exclaimed, darting between the rows of tanks as she tried to keep him in her sight. Unfortunately, he was just as fast, if not faster, than the other Irkens she had the displeasure of running into. He also didn't seem to be as feral as the Anti-Irkens, or as brash as Zim. She could tell by how he maneuvered around and into the shadows that Tallest Red was a leader for a reason. He planned to make this difficult and Shepard was more than up for the task.

"Don't let ME get away?" his voice echoed throughout the cavernous room. "You're in MY territory, human. You can't kill an Almighty Tallest."

"Funny. I could have sworn she just buried a round in your friend's head. As I recall, he said he was a Tallest. Kind of a pathetic looking one, too!" Garrus called, venturing down the passage adjacent to the one Shepard was searching.

"You're lying."

"Is he?" Samara spoke up, locating Legion and helping him to his feet. "Tallest Purple? We faced him and now we are here before you. He is not."

Silence fell so heavily that Shepard felt she could hear every footstep her teammates took as if they were amplified. She stilled her own movement to get a sense of things around her and began to feel a chill crawl its way up her spine. It took only a second, but she realized that it wasn't a chill at all. She whirled around and saw that Red had managed to soundlessly creep up behind her, the spear of his leg hovering over her head now. Undaunted, she fired at him. With unnatural speed, he ducked and weaved around her barrage of bullets, closing the gap between them.

"Did you kill him?" he stared at her with intent, dangerous eyes.

"Shot right through his dirty head," she sneered and Red slammed her against a one of the wall of tanks with his fore-leg.

"Head for a head, then?" he said, tilting his head with a grin that bordered on the edge of insanity. He pressed the razor edge of his leg tip against her jugular.

"Get off her, asshole!" Garrus demanded as he targeted Red's PAK to overload. The Tallest twitched and dropped Shepard, but recovered quickly and skimmed across the room out of sight again. Shepard let out a deep breath and rubbed her throat. "I know it's kind of your hobby, but now is not the time to get reckless," Garrus murmured to Shepard.

"He murdered Tali, Garrus. I'm not about to take it easy on him," Shepard replied, exasperated.

"I hear you," he replied. "I'm just saying that these guys are dangerous close-quarters. I should know. Got a little too close and personal with the last one."

"He's too quick. We need to pin him down," Shepard said, eyes darting around for any hint of his presence. "What did you use on him? I didn't hear you fire."

"Overloaded the pod on his back. When we were fighting the other one, I was trying to take out the legs but when I used it he went crazy."

"The connection to their neural systems...," Shepard realized. "It would probably send a shock wave through everything, not just the pod." Garrus nodded.

"Shepard!" Samara approached with Legion close behind. "Tali is gone, and so are Zim and his robot."

Shepard's brow furrowed then. "Damnit, Zim! We'll have to look for him later. We have to take care of the Tallest first." A clattering noise sounded from across the room that caused them all to tense up, fingers tentative on triggers.

"No time to be talking. We need to get moving," Garrus said, watching overhead for any out-of-place shadows.

"Actually, I think talking is just what we need," Shepard corrected.

"Shepard Commander has a strategy?" Legion queried.

"Always."

* * *

Zim shambled along the best he could on his two robotic legs. Despite being awkward, they were still quicker than using his natural ones. Gir followed him, the lifeless body of Tali Zorah hoisted over his head. Zim hadn't expected the human Commander to follow him, much less start waging war on his leader. Granted, Tallest Red had just tried to rip him apart, but Shepard had no right to be involved in Irken matters. She was probably going to be splattered all over the Massive by the time Red was done with her. Stupid human, he thought. How could she be so confident when she was so inferior? He had the utmost confidence in himself, too, but he had every right! He was an Irken, and ZIM!

Having led Gir deep down into the Massive, he found the hanger that housed a collection of Irken Voot Cruisers. These did not look in disrepair as the ones on IRK had and, much to his relief, when he opened the pod of one it activated without a hitch.

"Gir!" was all he needed to say and the robot joined him in the cockpit with Tali in tow, tucking her in the space behind the seat. Zim closed the piloting pod and set the small Invader's ship into motion. It felt remarkably good to be flying again. His hands gripped the controls and he reveled in how familiar it was and how much more in control he felt. His PAK sparked and sent a jolt of pain through his body as if to remind him that he was far from it. He needed to get off the ship to somewhere safe so he could repair it, and quick. He also needed some time to find out what was really going on with the Irkens and the Massive. He needed to find out what had transpired in the time he had been gone. There was something bigger at work here.

Since the pod doors refused to open for him, he activated the lasers in the Voot Cruiser's arsenal to cut himself an exit and then let the ship be tugged into the vacuum of space. Once out and stable he glanced back at the Quarian slumped behind him and narrowed his eyes. His plan had to work.

* * *

"You realize who I am, right?" Shepard called as she hunkered down behind a tank. "I'm goddamn Commander Shepard! I've destroyed things MUCH taller than you!"

"You know, if I wasn't so calloused from Zim's stupidity, that might irritate me," Red retorted from somewhere unknown. "But, no worries, I intend to kill you all on principle. And _you_, especially, for killing Purple."

"Did I mention how easy that was?" she chided. "It's no wonder you're hiding. Hell, get close enough and I bet I could take you out in one shot, too! For an Irken leader you sure aren't very intimidating!" Shepard was lying, of course. She had seen plenty in her days that scared the crap out of her, but she never let anyone know it. The Anti-Irkens she had run into creeped her out, but Tallest Red was bigger, and faster, and smarter. That last part is what made him intimidating. From what she had experienced thus far, a competent Irken was rare. It was just her luck to find the only one left in the universe.

A subtle tapping on the side of her tank shelter made her jump a bit. Glancing over she watched as Red emerged from around the side. She cursed herself for being surprised; he had managed to sneak up on her again.

"This doesn't have to be complicated. You can die knowing it was for a good cause. I'll even put you in the next batch of smeets... I just have to pop your head off first...," Red said, advancing on her. She lifted her gun instinctively, slowly backing away.

"You know, the way Zim talked about the Irken Empire I expected better," Shepard continued, keeping her gun trained on him as they moved. In her peripheral vision she saw Legion and Samara moving in the space between the tanks, flanking them. Red hadn't noticed.

"So he WAS with you," Red mused. "You might think me cruel now, human, but if I really wanted to punish you, I would just let him go back to your ship with you for a while. None of you would come out alive."

"What can I say? I like picking up oddballs and adding them to my crew," Shepard said. Her eyes darted to the side as she saw Garrus step in behind Red, moving predatory and silent as he followed him at a distance in the shadows. He lifted his sniper rifle up to his shoulder to peer through the scope, the gun scuffing slightly against his armor. Red stopped and perked up and Shepard felt her heart pound a little harder in her chest. He lifted his head and began to turn his gaze around. Quickly, Shepard fired a shot at his head, but his instincts were as sharp as ever. He dodged the shot, but at least his attentions were back on her and away from Garrus.

Shepard never really relied on strategies. She was more about playing by ear because strategies often times went awry. There was always some sort of unexpected element that sent plans flying and then you had to improvise. Since that was almost always what happened on Shepard's missions, she learned to treat strategies as helpful suggestions.

Like Zim, Tallest Red seemed to be steeped in Irken pride. He seemed to genuinely take offense at her insults, particularly about the Tallests and his former colleague. What's more is, while Zim enjoyed ranting and screaming, Tallest Red really seemed to enjoy talking. He couldn't resist threatening her, and one-upping anything she said. That had allowed enough time to get everyone in place.

But then there was that unexpected element. Luckily, Shepard was good at improvising. Red, however, did not appreciate her hostility, and decided he was done with talking. As he reared up to attack her, she dove beneath him and fired her shotgun at his torso. He wailed as the wound sputtered and Shepard scrambled out from beneath him.

"NOW!" Shepard declared. Garrus overloaded Red's PAK once more, causing him to stumble as he turned to face his assailants. Given the split-second, Samara and Legion fired at the tanks on either side of the Tallest, causing the liquid to flood over him. He sputtered and slipped, his legs collapsing beneath him on the slick floor. Seeing his chance, Garrus lifted his rifle again and shot. Shepard watched as Red flew backward, splashing against the ground, his blood mingling with the green fluid. She carefully moved to look at him. Garrus' aim was impeccable as ever; another Tallest had been taken down with a shot to the head.

"You have...no idea... what you've done..." Somehow, he fought it. He thrashed around and screamed and looked as though he was throwing a tantrum until the strength faded.

"That's what you get for killing one of my crew, bastard," Shepard said, glaring down at him. For once, he had no response for her. "We need to find Tal—"

Shepard was cut off as the entire room started to rumble with a loud groan. A low, ancient sounding creak sounded through the entire ship.

"That didn't sound good," Garrus said.

"Shepard? Shepard can you hear me?" Joker's voice suddenly sounded over her comm.

"Joker? Joker! Yes, I hear you!"

"Finally, our signal is back!" Joker said. "Shepard, you need to get off that ship, right now. I don't know what you've been doing in there, but I think you just pissed it off."


	9. Dancing on the Edge

CHAPTER 9: DANCING ON THE EDGE

The swarm came.

The sound was deafening; a clamoring thunder of a million synthetic legs tapping at furious speeds towards them. The ship trembled and moaned, occasionally emitting a noise akin to metal screaming against metal. Every time it wailed as if it were possessed, Shepard forced herself and her team to move ever faster as they attempted an escape.

Was the Massive truly alive? Shepard had not been given the opportunity to question Joker's warning before their connection fizzled and disappeared again. The only thing she knew was that they had triggered something by killing Tallest Red, and it wasn't anything they wanted to stay around for. As they exited the tank chamber and tried desperately to locate an exit, all the Anti-Irkens that had been oddly absent suddenly appeared. They were in every corner and shadow, lashing out at the team as they traversed the corridors with their guns blazing.

Shepard was locked in a state of surrealism. Everything seemed terribly muffled, flying in slow motion in front of her eyes. Her gun rocked in her hands with the force of its fire, but she didn't feel it. When she ran, the corridors seemed to never end. There were times when Garrus had to stop her from firing too long into the head of a dead Anti-Irken. He would grasp her chin in his talons and look into her eyes, forcing her distant, deadly gaze to focus on him. Then, for a moment, things would return to life around her and she moved onward.

Tali was dead and it shook her to her core. Shepard took her losses hard, even if no one could tell. The mission on Virmire had forced her to make a promise that she would not fail her team again. There were always losses, always too many, and every one of them left their mark on her. Everyone joked and laughed about how she was indestructible and a force to be reckoned with; the soldier that had cheated death. But she was still human, and she had still failed.

At that moment she would have gladly traded her resurrection to have Tali alive.

"Watch out, Shepard!" Samara called through her reverie. The ship _**had**_ come alive. The thick tubing that protruded from the floor and the ceiling had begun to unhinge itself, flying after them like alien serpents as they ran down the hall. Shepard tripped only briefly as one tried to wind around her ankle, but she quickly regained her footing.

Then there was Zim. The little bastard abandoned them and had run away like a coward. It figured that he was all talk and no backbone. Had he taken Tali's body? There was no proof that he had done so, but he, Gir, and Tali had all disappeared. They wouldn't even be able to return her body to the Flotilla or give her a proper service. If Zim had taken her, Shepard wasn't sure that she wanted to know why.

"Legion, have you located an exit?" she asked the Geth leading them.

"Negative. Our scanners are not functioning properly," he replied. "Running diagnostics."

"I don't think that's going to help, Legion. The damn ship is probably jamming our signals again," Shepard replied. Her eyes darted to the door at the other end of their path, noticing that it looked different than those they had previously encountered. It stood much larger than the others and was comprised of two interlocking panels instead of one. In Shepard's experience its unique appearance either meant that it might be the best place to go, or the worst. A clamor of rattling Anti-Irken legs heading in their direction made her decide that she would rather tempt fate than wait around for the swarm.

The room was pitch black as the door closed behind Shepard's crew. The amber glow of their omnitools penetrated the dark only slightly. Legion's optical unit, however, cast a bright beam of light wherever he looked. Shepard was thankful she had brought him along for many reasons, but she never suspected that one of them would be because the Geth were natural flashlights.

"I can't see a damn thing," Garrus murmured from somewhere to Shepard's right.

"Me either. Legion, come here," Shepard said, grasping in the shadows until she finally found Legion's good arm. "Samara, watch the door for a second."

"As you say," the Justicar replied.

"What do you require, Shepard Commander?" Legion queried.

"Just move as I move," she replied, holstering her gun and planting her hands at both of Legion's shoulders. "And keep your head straight." He did as told, allowing her to direct him like a large metal doll. She ventured forward slowly and tried to get an idea of where they had ended up. Legion's optical light shimmered over something in front of her. She paused and squinted. "Legion, can you identify the structure ahead?"

"May we move freely?"

"Yes," Shepard smirked. Legion let his light pass over a fairly large object that resided at the center of the room. An insignia that they had seen throughout the Massive adorned part of its surface; a symbol of the Irken Empire.

"It appears to be a vessel. We do not recognize its design." A sliver of hope surged through Shepard's core and she moved ahead of Legion to see the ship for herself. Lifting her hand, she ran it over the sleek surface and followed it until she found a dip in the metal; an opening. Beckoning Legion closer so she could get a better look, she tried to find a way to release it.

"Everyone, see if you can find a control panel or something," she said. In the dark she heard the scuffle of her teammates as they joined her in the search.

"Shepard," Garrus called from the other side of the vehicle. Legion dutifully waited until Shepard moved ahead of him before following to where the Turian had gone. "Ah, watch it, Legion," Garrus hissed, raising an arm as the Geth nearly blinded him by looking right in his face when they came near.

"What did you find?"

"I'm not sure, but this might be it," he replied, holding his omnitool up to illuminate a round panel near the pod's entrance.

"How in the hell...?" Shepard's brow furrowed. There were no buttons, numbers, or anywhere to put in a code as might be expected. Frustrated, she reached up and hit the panel only to find that it caused the entire ship to hum to life, lights flaring up inside the piloting pod. She and Garrus exchanged a look, the latter giving a puzzled flare of his mandibles. Shepard tried to open the pod again, but it remained firmly shut. "Shouldn't have expected it to be so easy."

"INVALID ENTRY CODE. ACCESS DENIED." the ship monotoned.

"Don't you talk back to me! I'm already having a VERY BAD DAY," Shepard declared, hitting the panel again just out of pure spite.

"INVALID ENTRY CODE. ACCESS DENIED."

"Legion, can you hack this door?" the Commander asked, squinting past Legion's light to see him.

"Yes, but we do not recommend this solution."

"Why?"

"Illogical. It is possible that Shepard Commander will have ceased to function before we have broken the code."

"What do you mean?"

"Mechanism requires a specific combination of motions applied to its surface to unlock."

"Okay... and how many possible combinations are there?"

"Approximately 24,345,566,766.89...approximately." Shepard groaned.

"Shepard, we have movement!" Samara called from the entryway.

"Shit..! Why can't we just catch a break for once!" Shepard huffed. "There has to be an easier way to bypass this!"

"Getting pissed off isn't going to help anything," Garrus murmured.

"Oh? If you're so damn smart, Garrus, why don't you try _**calibrating**_ it? That seems to be your answer for everything! God forbid you take a little action for once!"

Dead silence fell between them. Garrus' jaw fell slack and his mandibles flared with a deep breath. Shepard knew she had struck a low blow, but she really didn't need anyone telling her what to feel. She promised herself to apologize for it later, but not now.

Garrus averted his gaze for a second and then promptly reared his head back and headbutted the panel. Leaning back, he shook his head and rubbed his crest plate. Shepard stared at him blankly and then balled her fists a little bit. What in the hell was he-?

"AC—AC-CESS GRANTED. GREETINGS MY ALMIGHTY TALLESTS, WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO INVADE TODAY?"

"Seriously?" Shepard said in disbelief. "What are you, a Krogan?"

Garrus shrugged nonchalantly. "Just taking a little _action_." Shepard lifted a hand, stopping herself from continuing the conversation. Now was not the time for comrade or relationship banter. Hoisting herself up, she climbed into the now open cockpit.

"Samara! Let's go!" The Justicar bolted from the door just as it flew open, giving way to a flood of Anti-Irkens. She levitated herself up into the cockpit with the others and Shepard quickly tried to figure out how to close the pod. "Come on... Close... CLOSE!"

"CLOSING THE COCKPIT. PLEASE KEEP ALL APPENDAGES AND TASTY SNACKS INSIDE THE VEHICLE."

Metal legs began to spear themselves into the gap where the pod had not yet closed fully. Shepard clenched her teeth as one or two scraped her arms and leaned back into Garrus' lap to kick at the Anti-Irkens trying to force their way in. Garrus did his best to accommodate her although he had his talons full with more of them trying to get in on his side.

"Little help, please!" Shepard strained.

Samara biotically blasted away an Anti-Irken attempting to drag Legion through the small space by his dangling wires. Once he was fully inside the cockpit again, she refocused and her eyes began to glow. Gathering all the energy she could muster, she let out a biotic shock wave, forcing the beasts from the ship and allowing the cockpit to close and lock. Shepard allowed herself to collapse for a minute in the Turian's lap.

"No time for rest just yet," Garrus said, readjusting himself in a seat that was quite obviously not made for someone his size. The entire cockpit was just a little bit crowded with the four of them packed inside. He helped Shepard into the seat beside him and she regained herself and searched the panel in front of her to decipher the controls. All the while, the Anti-Irkens were clambering atop the vessel, scraping their legs against the pod in fury.

"Okay, how the hell does this even work?" she said under her breath. Reaching out she tapped one of the buttons and the ship squealed against the floor, it's rear end flying ninety degrees to the left as the jets fired. Some of the Anti-Irkens screamed as they flew from the ship, but Shepard quickly released the button.

"May I suggest we get into open space before we try to fly?" Garrus said, dryly. Shepard shot him a look and he clenched his jaw shut. Shepard tried another button, and the cockpit suddenly rumbled with something akin to techno music as the inner lights dimmed and colorful lasers began to dance around.

"AGH! MOTHERF-!" Garrus declared, slapping a hand over his eyes as he was temporarily blinded again.

"Shepard Commander?" Legion spoke as Shepard turned off the impromptu inner-ship rave.

"What?" Shepard replied, a little harsher than she had meant to. She hated back seat drivers. Luckily, Legion was not the type to take things personally.

"May we try?"

"Fine, yes!" she replied and moved aside. Legion wedged himself in front of her and scanned the controls, clicking in his peculiar Geth language amongst himself.

After only a few moments the ship began to lift off the ground, dropping Anti-Irkens from its surface. With a couple of taps from Legion's fingertips on the console, the door to their hanger began to open. Shepard felt a sadistic bit of glee as she watched some of the Anti-Irkens get pulled along in the vacuum towards the opening in the door. Legion began to propel the ship to the exit, only to be halted when the hanger door abruptly slammed shut. A loud, ominous wail sounded through the Massive around them, causing the room to shake.

"The ship does not want to let us go so easily," Samara said when things fell silent once more.

"It doesn't get a choice," Shepard replied. "Legion, what weapons do we have?"

* * *

"Come on, Shepard. We need to get out of here," Joker said anxiously as he tried to remain steady in the cockpit. He didn't like how the Massive was moving, almost as though it planned to devour the Normandy whole. Large, Reaper tendrils had dislodged themselves from the sides of the Irken ship, threatening to reach out and claim the smaller vessel. It had not attempted to attack yet, seemingly preoccupied with something else, but that didn't make Joker feel any less twitchy. He had no idea what sort of armor or weapons the Massive carried and really was not keen to find out the hard way.

Garrus' team had entered the ship what seemed like ages ago and there was yet to be any signal that they were coming back. The only sign of life had come when the previously still and dormant ship began to move of its own accord. Joker had briefly made contact with Shepard long enough to issue a warning but then things fell silent once more.

"There is new activity," EDI intoned, breaking him from his thoughts. Returning his attentions to the view screen, he noticed that the ship was acting even more agitated than before. There was also a strange mist pouring from the back of the Massive. Upon closer inspection, he found it was not mist at all, but thousands of spider-like creatures tumbling into the depths of space. Amidst the cloud flew a small vessel of a make he had never seen before. It was heading their way. He felt a chill run through his spine.

"EDI, get ready to -"

"Joker!"

"Shepard?"

"Open the hanger doors!"

"Why are you -? You know what? Never mind!" He tapped his console to do as asked. The sooner they got out of the area, the better.

"Jeff, we need to take evasive action," EDI spoke up.

"What? Wh-?" Joker choked on his words at the sight before him. He felt sweat beginning to form at his brow, just at the ridge of his N7 cap. It was familiar in the way of experiencing deja vu in a nightmare. The difference was that this was dream-shattering real.

He had made a point to stay a good distance from the Massive, not particularly trusting its unfamiliar structure and really not trusting how big the thing was. As a pilot he couldn't help but marvel at its sheer girth. His mind had wandered to the old-school sci-fi films about ships like these; ships they would have called planet-destroyers. He never would have suspected he would see something like it in person, something bigger than the Reapers and the Collector ships that had towered over them before.

There was one part of the ship on the largest fore pod that Joker had merely figured was a docking bay for smaller vessels. He had been terribly mistaken.

The panel that spanned the width of the pod was nothing of the sort. It was a cannon. It was a ridiculously large cannon that would ensure that your existence had been zapped from the universe as if you never were; you and your little ship, too. Currently, it was pulsing with an ominous beam of light that nearly blinded him. His fingertips scrambled to find the comm button.

"Shepard? Are you in!" He felt his voice crack, but was too distracted about the imminent doom to feel embarrassed about it. No response. "Shit!"

"Jeff," EDI insisted. "The energy field is reaching its apex. We have less than five seconds before fire."

"SHEPARD!" he demanded into the comm.

"5."

"SHEPARD ARE YOU IN?"

"4."

"Joker! We're secure! GET MOVING!"

"3."

"I get it!" Joker declared, ensuring that the ship was facing the Massive's direction. There was no way to outrun whatever hell it was about to unleash, so the only option was to get out of its way.

"Hanger is secure. Activating FTL drive," EDI reported.

For a split second, Joker felt everything jolt. It took him a moment to prove to himself that he was still alive when he finally opened his eyes. Leather chair, check. Cap, check. Rickety legs, ugh, check. He began to check the ship for the cause of the turbulence.

"All systems seem fine..."

"We were caught in an echo of the Massive's blast cannon," EDI said promptly, as if reading his thoughts. "Effectively, we were 'clipped' by the edge of an initial shock wave. It did not damage anything vital. I do not recommend repeating the encounter, however, as a fraction of a second is the only thing that kept the Normandy from total annihilation." Joker stared at her holographic orb, face and jaw drawn tight in a very displeased fashion. "We were lucky," she added.

"That's IT! I'm demanding shore leave! At my own private resort! With my own hula girls!"

* * *

Shepard rubbed at her forehead as she leaned against the wall in the elevator. Joker had not been particularly pleased with her, but he would get over it. She had stood and listened silently to his ranting, letting him fume and curse until he ran out of words (a feat in itself). She had been called to Mordin's lab so he could share some new breakthrough information with her; things that he had learned while inspecting the dead Tallest's body. As politely as she could, she turned him down. Nowhere in the mood for his excitement, and even less so to be around one of the monsters responsible for her comrade's death, she merely wanted a moment of quiet. At least Garrus had understood and left her to return to her room alone. No doubt, he was grieving in his own way. They had both been close to Tali.

The elevator stopped prematurely and she gave an inward groan, hoping that whoever it was would not feel the need to strike up conversation.

"Human."

Shepard's brow furrowed as she heard the tippity tap of a familiar march enter the elevator. She allowed her eyes to slowly open, gaze moving down to her left as she felt the vein in her forehead begin to pulse. She did not notice the doors close.

The insectoid eyes gleamed up at her with a never-ending defiance. A smirk glued itself to his face as if he knew every secret in the world but never planned on telling. Shepard's fingers twitched and fixed on the grip of her pistol, ever ready at her hip. He was talking to her, just jabbering along as he always seemed to do. She couldn't understand much of what he said as the rage flooded her, causing her heart to beat loudly in her ears.

"I...will...END YOU!" she screamed, whirling with her gun and heedlessly firing it where he stood. Zim, quick as ever, dodged behind her and hammered the panel at the door until it opened. He dove out into the mess hall, and Shepard pursued, firing every chance she got. Those around her lept from their chairs and duties, wondering if the Commander had suddenly gone raving mad. Shepard wondered this herself, but only for a moment. All it took was one memory of Tali to justify it for herself. Zim was going to die.

"Crazy human! You don't know what you're doing!" Zim declared, launching himself from wall to chair to door in desperate escape. Without all his Irken legs, he had become a little clumsy and off balance.

"I know EXACTLY what I'm doing, MAGGOT!" she seethed. As he flew to dive by her she grasped at him, managing to grab hold of his jacket and threw him to the floor of the mess hall none to gently.

"Shepard!" she heard Miranda speak.

"Oh my goodness." Kelly was there, too. Despite not taking her eyes off Zim, Shepard knew she had drawn an audience. Her crew was here now, watching her as she poised to murder the Irken. She heard frightened murmurs amongst some of the ship's hands. _Yes, Shepard can lose it too, _she thought. I_'m sorry to break the dream. _

"Shepard, what is this?" Mordin asked.

"If it wasn't for this asshole and his leaders, Tali would still be alive," She drove the barrel of her gun into his forehead, holding him down. "You have a lot of gall coming back here."

"Shepard," Garrus pushed through the crowd but stood at a distance, his tone stern but careful. "Don't do something you're going to regret."

Shepard let out a bitter laugh, hearing the advice that she had given so many of her friends coming back to haunt her now. She was being a hypocrite, wanting to defend herself and her reasons to kill Zim. She wanted them all to just go away and let her make her peace, just like they had wanted. Would they lose all respect for her if she just popped him one right now; killed him with no remorse?

"Shepard, he-," Garrus started.

"Tali. Was that her name? The Quar-ee-un?" Zim suddenly spoke, surprisingly docile as he lay on the floor. Even under the barrel of her gun, with her finger so ready on the trigger, he managed a gloating smirk.

"That's it! Out of respect for my crew I'm giving you one last chance, Zim. Give me one VERY good reason why I shouldn't kill you right now, or I'm burying my entire clip in your brain."

"Oh, I've got better than that... I have her."


	10. Rude Awakening

CHAPTER 10: RUDE AWAKENING

"Dr. Chakwas... Is she...?"

"Her vitals appear stable, but I'll need to keep her under observation a while longer before I know more." Chakwas' words were common ones of her trade, but Shepard found that the doctor's tone crippled the vague reassurance they were meant to bring. Chakwas didn't know any more about what this meant than she did.

Shepard pressed a hand to the glass separating her from the Quarian's figure laying in the quarantine hold of the medical bay. She stared hard until her eyes burned trying to catch a glimpse of the rise and fall of Tali's chest to prove she was alive. It was faint, but after a few moments she was certain it was there. She looked so vulnerable on the bed without her suit, cloaked in a sterile med-bay blanket. Seeing her face was like seeing air; you knew it was there and what it might look like given form, but you never expected to actually see it with your own eyes. But there she was.

"You're certain, Shepard...?" Chakwas asked from beside the Commander. Shepard lifted her eyes from Tali over to the Doctor. The question didn't need to be specific. She had already asked herself the same thing about a thousand times: Had Tali actually been dead?

"Yes," she replied, reaffirming it with herself as she said it. "I don't know how long she had been outside of her suit, or how long she was in that tube. But when I found her everything about her told me she wasn't alive." The thought still stung, even now.

"Puzzling," Chakwas murmured, and then turned to leave the Commander to her own thoughts. Shepard crossed her arms and dared another glance up at Tali now. A pang of guilt trickled through her chest.

"I'm sorry, Tali...," she sighed. "Whatever they did to you... I'm sorry I couldn't stop it." Her fingertips brushed the glass one more time before she turned to leave. There was no use dwelling here despite everything inside her telling her to do so. Only time was going to see this play through. Shepard only hoped she wouldn't have to see Tali die twice.

When she exited the med-bay, Garrus was waiting for her. He pressed off where he had been leaning by the door.

"Hey," he trotted to catch up with her and she turned to look at him. He searched her eyes and her face for the answers he was looking for, but his mandibles folded against his jaw and he bowed his head when he saw the uncertainty. Garrus had grown quite good at reading his Commander and recently bonded mate, so it unsettled him a little when her emotions clouded over like that.

"She's stable," Shepard offered.

"That's good," he replied with a slight nod. He paused, unsure how to broach the next subject.

"What is it, Garrus?" Shepard prompted him. He hesitated with a scratch of a talon at his jaw until her expression grew impatient.

"What are you going to do about Zim?" It was Shepard's turn to fall silent now, a fist noticeably clenching so hard her knuckles flared white.

"I'll figure something out."

"Right," he huffed out a breath, knowing that her tone ended the discussion. He wanted to question her further, to know what she really planned to do with the Irken. He had been a grinding irritation from the beginning but the truth was he had returned Tali to the Normandy and she was, seemingly, alive. As much as he hated it, the whole situation had become terribly muddy and not as clear cut as they may have liked. He recalled Shepard's rage in the mess hall not moments before and, though he couldn't blame her, he hoped she regained her wits before facing Zim again. She was going to need all the patience she could muster to find out what he had done. His fear was that she might have fallen beyond caring about the details at this point.

"I have to go see Mordin. You should go visit Tali."

"I'll do that," he said and watched her go. She was human but sometimes when she silently fumed he could see it in her stride, so eerily like a few Turians he knew. He didn't envy Mordin then, but hoped the good Doctor could at least distract Shepard from her thoughts for awhile.

* * *

Shepard rather enjoyed it when Mordin was happy. He smiled a lot of often times you could catch him humming while he worked. Even though her own mood was anything but, she wanted to know what he had discovered about the Irkens. Perhaps his good vibes would rub off on her. She didn't particularly enjoy feeling out of control as she had in the mess hall, but didn't plan on apologizing for it either. Quickly, she put off thinking about how much Zim deserved it, knowing it would just rile her up again.

"So, what have you got for me, Mordin?" she greeted as she walked in the lab. She was only briefly aware of something scanning her at the door. "Hoooly~" Her hands clamped over her nose as a grotesque odor filled her lungs and lurched her stomach. Mordin glanced up at her words and then scrambled over to give her an air filtration mask. When her eyes stopped watering, she noticed that he had also been wearing one, as well as gloves that may as well have screamed 'mad scientist'. They were slathered with a foreign wetness that she could only guess came from the body laid out neatly on his work table in the center of the lab.

"Apologies. Did not know you were coming," he said.

"Is this safe?" she asked, trying to clear the remaining funk out of her throat.

Mordin looked a little insulted at the insinuation. "Perfectly. Decontamination field has been installed at entry and entire lab is sterile." He moved back over to his current specimen. Shepard followed, but to the opposite side of the table. Seeing Tallest Purple's vacant eye sockets staring at nothing and his organs all neatly splayed around filled her with mixed feelings. On one hand, she was glad that they might get something helpful from him, and on the other she wanted to just incinerate the corpse altogether.

"What have you found...?"

"Too many things to explain just yet. Must study everything singularly to get a precise picture," he mumbled, probing around in Purple's lower cavity.

"Well, what do you know for sure?"

"Hmm. Very few internal organs. This," he lifted up a long, still drooling bit of fleshy tubing. Shepard tried to steel her gut and ignore the finer details of it. "Appears to be digestive organ. Like a stomach."

"It looks like an intestine to me," Shepard mentioned.

"Likely does that, too. In fact, appears to do many things. Still trying to decipher how Irkens can function on so few organs. Once likely had reproductive organs, but very small trace left to be found.

"Wait, what? What does that mean?"

"Legion provided a record of current Irken means of birthing," he replied. Shepard blinked a few times.

"Wh... Huh?" Mordin, realizing how perplexed she was, pulled up the vid on his omnitool and showed her. Shepard immediately recognized the room, but was not suspecting what she saw. The claws she had seen hanging dormant claimed one of the tubes, busted it open and dropped out a tiny Irken. Without so much as a blink, it obeyed the command of the computerized voice and skittered off to report for its first duty. "So they don't breed naturally?"

"May have once, but no longer. Given that Irkens are Invaders, it may be that they began artificially producing offspring to increase their number faster. No time for romance and needless mating. Similar to Salarians in that respect."

"Was Zim created?"

"Cannot determine unless he is examined closely, but it is most likely."

"Well, their numbers sure didn't help them against the Reapers...," Shepard scoffed a little.

"Did not help anyone else. No reason to think it might."

"I know... I'm just..."

"Angry. I saw." The way Mordin said it made Shepard feel the slightest bit embarrassed at her outburst. She pushed the feeling aside and tried to focus on something else.

"What about this thing?" she gestured to the pod at Purple's back. "You haven't removed it yet."

"That. Must be very careful. Do not want to damage anything. Since it is connected to the whole central system of the body, very delicate."

"Do you know what it's for? I've seen Zim pull tools from it, and he and the Tallest have those synthetic legs..."

"Unsure of exact use at this time."

"Best guess?"

Mordin looked up at her as he shifted one of the metal legs to the side, out of his way.

"May be like a brain."

"But they have a brain...right? I killed him by shooting him in the head."

"Yes, they have a brain. But the difference is how the nervous system operates. It is not connected entirely to the brain, primarily to the pod. They rely on both...or possibly, the brain relies on the pod. I do not know. Need further study to confirm."

A wave of questions crashed about in Shepard's head with all this information. She could have questioned Mordin for hours had EDI not interrupted.

"Commander. Zim is requesting your presence in the hanger." Annoying and inconvenient as always, Shepard growled inwardly. She supposed Mordin wouldn't have appreciated her bombarding him with all her questions anyhow, considering he barely had all the answers in the first place. He didn't like making haphazard theories based on guesses. Considering that all the Tallest had brought him was more questions to his questions, it would probably be some time before he got things sorted out.

She also couldn't put Zim off anymore. She would have to face him again eventually.

"I'll be right there, EDI." She turned to go, but suddenly felt a slight twinge in her arm. With a gasp, she turned and extracted her arm from a now gloveless Mordin, who was holding an injection gun. "What the hell, Mordin?"

"Just a precaution. For your initial exposure when you came in." She grimaced a little, rubbing the spot on her arm and deposited the mask on a hook outside the door once she'd been decontaminated. Feeling resolute, she headed for the hanger.

* * *

Much to her surprise when she entered the hanger, Shepard found Zim sitting rather docile on a crate. She half expected him to be pacing around or lurching about on those legs of his ready to spout his superiority the minute she walked in the door. As she approached, she became aware that some of those legs were actually missing, and the others looked battered. Zim had a hand at his arm, hunched over as he attempted to suppress tremors that the PAK on his back seemed to be causing him from time to time.

For a moment she almost felt sympathetic at the image.

"You should probably get that looked that," she said, though there was little true concern in her voice.

"What? By your HUMAN doctor? Or the frog man? HA!" Ah yes, there he was, in all his Zim glory.

"What is this about, Zim? Why did you come back here? I know it wasn't just out of Irken-forsaken kindness that you brought Tali back... IF she's really back, that is."

"OH! She's fine," he declared, though he cringed through the last word. "Probably BETTER, in fact." He just had to brag.

"What's that supposed to mean? What did you do?"

Zim ignored her question. "I'll admit this once that you are actually perceptive enough to be correct, meat-sack. I brought the Tali-Quarian back as a trade." Shepard narrowed her eyes feeling like she should be enraged at this. She waited for the anger to flood her again like before, wished for it even, but it just wouldn't come. She kept her cool and merely crossed her arms, staring at him.

"For what?"

"I need access to your supplies to repair my PAK. In exchange, you have your Tali back." So, that was it. Zim had been at the wrong end of his former leader's rage, and now he was dealing with the repercussions. Served him right, Shepard thought. He did look like an awful mess. No doubt his 'PAK' as he called it, was causing him a great deal of pain and discomfort if it was connected to him as deeply as Mordin had said. Deserving of it or not, though, the proposition still stood. Shepard clenched her jaw and considered her options silently.

"She is alive?" she asked.

"What did I say?" Zim growled out, suddenly not seeming in the mood.

"I don't know, Zim. What DID you say?"

"She's ALIVE, you stupid...STUPID!" Shepard began to step closer to Zim and she leaned over him now, hand on the crate behind him. She imagined he hated this, having her tower above him. Being in pain, his answers were more likely to come straight and quick if she played it right.

"She was dead, Zim. Suddenly, you bring her back and she's alive. How?"

"I don't remember," he said, scowling at her now. His tone was oddly truthful.

"Sorry?"

"I don't REMEMBER! Are your hearing boxes DAMAGED?"

"What do you MEAN you don't remember! You DID it, didn't you?"

"Yes! But my PAK is damaged, infuriating human! I can't access the MEMORY!" Shepard paused and watched him a moment. He seemed genuinely irritated at this claim. Memory? His PAK held his memories...not his brain? That would be something to share with Mordin later. Considering things, it was very possible that he was telling the truth. Shepard mulled over whether or not she planned to accept this excuse and eventually something peculiar inside her told her to let it go.

"Alright, Zim. You can use our supplies. But... if Tali dies again or turns out to be some weird-ass zombie I promise that I am going to finish what the Tallests didn't." With that, she pulled away from him and headed for the door. "Oh, and I was serious. You really should get that looked at." Zim scowled, though she didn't see it, and regarded the gouge on his arm disdainfully.

"Shepard!"

Shepard blinked and glanced over at Garrus and Mordin who were waiting outside the door when she exited.

"Um. What are you two doing here?"

"We were just...," Garrus hummed.

"Picking up some extra supplies for the lab," Mordin finished. Shepard glanced between them warily for a moment and then nodded.

"Zim's in there... He probably won't do much...but just so you know..."

"Oh. He is?" Garrus said with a flare of his mandibles.

"Yes...," Shepard trailed off, eying Garrus a little harder now.

"Must speak with him about those wounds, yes," Mordin quipped. Shepard's gaze turned back to the Salarian mellowly.

"Yeah. He probably won't seek medical help on his own. It would be great if you could do something for him. He's no good to us dead." Mordin nodded agreeably, and Shepard gave Garrus one last wayward look before turning to go. The Salarian and Turian stayed put until she had vanished into the elevator.

"I see Turians are still not known for their subtlety," Mordin murmured.

"What did you give her?" Garrus huffed out a breath he had been holding.

"Mild sedative. As Commander said, Zim is no good to us dead."

* * *

It was beautiful.

Everything around her was lush and vibrant, so much that it made her eager to be rid of that suit of hers. On the other hand, she was anxious about it. So long had she yearned to be without it she never thought that she would have any reservations when the time came. How would the sun feel? How would the wind feel? What about the smells, unfiltered and fresh? Tali felt her heart rush in her chest with the possibilities. It was so unreal. Even as she ventured forward through the native greenery of Rannoch, she could hardly believe she was there.

But where was everyone else, she wondered. There were no Geth here. No other Quarians. Where was Shepard? Why was she here alone? Something shivered inside her and she began to run towards a more open glade.

"Hello?" she called. "Is anyone there?" Her own voice echoed almost painfully in her helmet. Why wasn't the clearing getting closer? She was not this far before. Turning to look behind her, she wondered at where the light had gone. Was the sun setting already? Only moments ago it appeared to be midday. She stumbled on a root at her feet and tumbled backward to her rear with a grunt.

Cursing at her clumsiness, she moved to get to her feet, only to find that the root at her foot had twisted around her ankle. She hastily reached down to pull it away, wondering what that metallic scraping she heard in the distance was. Were they working on a ship nearby? Perhaps there were more Quarians there. Jumping to her feet, she ran towards the sound nearly blind in the dark. The scraping and screeching grew louder and she slowed, jarred by how much the sound shook her.

"What is...?" she whispered, lifting her hands to her helmet. Something moved to her left, and then to her right. It was as though the tall brush was moving around her. The metallic noise sounded sharply above her and she looked up. A terrifying, split grin glimmered back at her; razors in the mouth of a spindly green, spider-like creature with globs of red sludge pouring from between its teeth. It made a noise somewhere between a laugh and gag. Panicked, reared back and ran in the opposite direction.

A loud crack sounded in her helmet and she saw the break in her helmet's visor. It cracked again, seemingly for no reason and she felt as though her heart might burst. Her suit began to burn her, turning molten as it drizzled from her form like thick tar. She tried to scream, but the visor in her helmet burst and clogged her throat with tiny shards. Choking, she stumbled and sank into the ground. It fluctuated around her and enveloped her, delving into her gaping mouth.

She sputtered and tried to swim up, but the liquid was too thick. Briefly, her eyes glimpsed another green face peering at her, blurred by the confining jelly. She choked again and gasped, then blacked out.

There was a flash.

Darkness followed, accompanied by another flash. She gasped for air and managed to squeeze the slightest bit into her battered lungs.

Her eyes were open. She could see, but barely. The face from before – in the liquid – flickered into view as she felt her heart flutter into a frantic pace from nothing, her lungs pulling in the first full breath she could remember. Her sight flickered out again.

She frantically grasped for another breath.

It came. Deep and full, again and again.

Her face was chilled, but her body felt warm. She opened her eyes. Dim lights above her clouded her vision. She lifted her arm to block the glare and then became aware of her hand. Her eyes focused on it until it was clear, her three fingers flexing against her palm. Her palm. Her bare palm. Her other hand came up, touching the skin of her forearm. It felt real. Cautiously, she moved to sit, her body aching terribly all over. Was she sweating? Her fingers brushed her face again, feeling the moisture on her forehead. The warmth left her body as she sat up and she grasped the blanket back up to her chest.

She inhaled deeply. One more time. Out again.

She was breathing air.

Had she died? Was this a dream or a part of another nightmare? She touched her mouth with her fingertips to feel the breath and a smile crawled over her lips as she became aware she was touching her face.

A noise to her left. She perked up. Shepard?

No.

Claws scraped against the glass as a long, rotted tongue swathed its way over the surface. Empty sockets peered in at her in a way that only cemented his intentions.

Tali screamed.

* * *

"Tali! Where's Tali?' Shepard exclaimed as she flew into the med-bay, in a half coherent panic and still in her sleep clothes.

"Tali is fine! She's awake!" Chakwas reassured Shepard, holding the Commander back from bursting into the quarantine room. Shepard looked over the Doctor's shoulder at Tali's figure, barely visible as it hunched down on the floor against the wall as she hugged her knees.

"She's NOT fine! What happened? Let me go to her! Damnit, Chakwas!"

"Shepard!" Chakwas said sternly, locking eyes with the Commander. "We need to keep the room sterile! I will go in and check on her but you have to stay here!" Shepard held back the urge to shove the long trusted Doc into the wall and disobey, sinking back a step and nodding. When she was sure Shepard was going to stay put, Chakwas pulled on the rest of her medical uniform and headed into the quarantine room.

"What's going on?" Garrus asked, having followed the Commander out as soon as she bolted from their bed.

"Tali... She's...," Shepard bit one of her fingers, hard, and folded her arm against her ribcage. Garrus came to her and pulled her in to calm her.

"Is she okay?"

"She was screaming, Garrus...," Shepard said. "Chakwas wouldn't let me..." She pulled from the Turian's grasp to go to the viewing window. Chakwas was kneeling by Tali, talking to her and trying to comfort her. Shepard wanted desperately to be in her place, but knew better. Her eyes darted about the room in search of what had sent Tali into a frenzy. Her eyes settled on the glass again.

There was a long strip of a muddy looking substance smeared over the lower edge, something she had missed initially in the dim lights of the med-bay.

"Garrus...," she spoke, but heard the comm static overhead.

"Shepard," Mordin's voice rang loud in the silence. "We have a problem..."

* * *

A/N: Hope you guys are enjoying the new chapters! I know this is a horrible place to end an update (since I update monhtly), so I hope to get a bonus chapter in this month! Can't have a Merry Christmas with Tali being all traumatized, now can we? ;)


	11. Computing PI

CHAPTER 11: COMPUTING PI

Expect the unexpected; it was something Shepard had learned early even before she enlisted in the service to escape the slums of her youth. That simple phrase had defined most of her time with the Alliance and had been part of the reason why she survived on Akuze. The words had never rung more true than they did when she ran barefoot into Mordin's lab. Even though Mordin had been pacing right in front of the door when it opened, the first thing her eyes saw was an empty table.

"Where's the Tallest, Mordin?" she asked before he could have the first word, a rare feat with the Salarian doctor.

"Vanished, Shepard," Mordin replied. "Turned back for only a moment, looking for specimen containment canisters. Was gone when I looked back."

"You didn't hear anything?" Shepard asked, the chill air of the sterile lab, and perhaps a tinge of panic, giving her gooseflesh in her night clothes. Mordin shook his head.

"All organs missing," he added, sounding equally disturbed by this fact as she must have looked. Mordin had splayed out the Tallest like a gruesome set of puzzle pieces before him and now not only was the corpse missing, but the detached organs, too? Shepard shuddered, once again not sure entirely of the cause.

"This doesn't make sense. It was dead, Mordin. You did an autopsy on the thing! How could it get up and just walk away?"

"Equally perplexed myself. Though... One theory..."

"What?" Shepard asked, holding a breath.

The door whooshed open behind Shepard and as she turned to see who it was. Hands shoved at her knees, pushing her aside. She stumbled only slightly as the small Irken ventured into the lab, she and Mordin silent at his unexpected presence. Zim ignored them, more intent on repairing his PAK than dealing with them, but he stopped dead when he reached the table slathered with remnants of Irken tissue and fluids still glued to its surface. The toolbox he had been carrying crashed to the floor with a resounding clatter in the quiet. Whirling around he glared up at them, his tiny body trembling. His sputtering PAK was not the culprit this time; he was furious.

"What did you DO?" he declared. Mordin moved to explain but Shepard quickly stopped him. Zim looked like a firecracker ready to go off.

"He was dead, Zim. I shot Tallest Purple and told my crew to bring him here. We needed to find out about the Irkens."

"You brought the Tallest HERE?" Zim replied, instinctively trying to raise up on his legs but failing miserably when the remaining busted ones collapsed under him. "Are you INSANE?"

"You led us to that forsaken ship and even if you weren't responsible for Tali dying, your leaders were! If you expect me to be sympathetic about dissecting that asshole you're going to be sorely disappointed."

"I wouldn't have CARED if you had killed him. He wasn't MY Tallest anymore! Neither of them were! You're an idiot for bringing him HERE!"

Shepard regarded Zim with hard, searching eyes. He knew what was going on here, and she realized she was about to find herself in a position she didn't much like: she had made the wrong move.

"Let me guess – you shot at him with your piddly human weapons and once he stopped moving you figured he was dead."

"That's usually how it works, Zim."

"Not with Irkens! Did you destroy his PAK?"

"His what?" Mordin interjected.

"His PAK! This!" Zim gestured awkwardly to the marred pod at his own back. Shepard shook her head slowly and Zim let out a growl of frustration. "You have no idea what you've done, human! You just unleashed a corrupt Tallest on your ship!"

"The PAK brings the Irkens back to life?" Shepard prodded.

"No. It KEEPS them alive. You were tearing apart a live Irken even if you didn't know it."

"Theory was correct," Mordin spoke up. "PAK controls entire body. Controls brain. Damage to bodily tissue does not necessarily cease brain, or PAK, function."

"So, what are you saying? The PAK rebooted the body?" Shepard asked.

"Essentially, yes. Not entirely familiar with complete functionality of Irken tissue or organs, so it may very well be possible for them."

"But destroying the brain function must have some effect. Maybe he'll be weakened by it."

"Pfffttt...," Zim scoffed loudly. "Trust me, if his PAK is still fully functional you're in deep dookie, human. His squishy parts might not be all there, but HE is." Shepard looked at Zim, realizing that despite how odd his words sounded they made sense. It was like an extreme version of a comatose human. They stopped responding to exterior stimuli, the connection between their brain and their body halted. Those who recovered made some of those connections back with years of therapy. If what Zim said was true, as long as the Irken PAK was unharmed, it reactivated those connections at an unreal speed. And, unlike humans, the body didn't even need to stay alive to be reactivated.

For a moment Shepard's mind wandered to Zim's PAK. From what she'd seen it looked like it had suffered greatly, and Zim's bodily tremors proved as much. If the PAK was the only thing keeping him alive, a dramatic malfunction could very well kill him. His 'brain' would fail and his body would die along with it. She cursed the guilt bubbling up inside her. She had been ready to blow his brains out not hours ago, but now the thought of him expiring due to damaged wiring was worrying her? Forget it, she insisted. It wasn't the matter at hand. A zombie Tallest was loose on their ship and there was no telling what he might be capable of. Shepard didn't dare underestimate the reanimated dead. She had been hounded by enough husks to know, even brainless, that they were dangerous. Hell, she had come back from the dead herself and look how that worked out for everyone on the wrong end of her gun.

"EDI."

"Yes, Shepard?" EDI's holo appeared.

"Can you find any signs of where the Tallest might be?"

"There have been no irregularities in surveillance."

"Signature may not show on ship's systems. May have been altered when resurrected," Mordin offered.

"Figures," Shepard sighed. "Alright. EDI, I want you to alert the crew to keep their eyes open for any strange activity. Mordin, I'm going to go check on Tali. If you can...," she hesitated briefly. "Try to help Zim repair his PAK." Mordin nodded, though Zim's expression gave hint that he didn't plan on letting the Salarian anywhere near him. Shepard ignored it and hurried from the lab. The time in the elevator and hallways was tense as she began to listen intently to every little noise. She berated herself for being so on edge, but knowing how Tallest Red had a habit of surprising her didn't put her much at ease about Tallest Purple. Granted, Tallest Red had been a picture of health in comparison to Purple, but that didn't make her feel any better. If anything, it creeped her out worse.

Once back on the CIC she padded with purpose towards the Med Bay, thoughts of shadow creepers vanishing beneath ones of Tali.

* * *

Tali blinked a few times as Chakwas double checked her eyes. The doctor seemed perplexed trying to get an idea of the state of her vision since she had no pupils. The fact that Quarian eyes were already fairly illuminated wasn't helping either. Chakwas had abandoned the tiny light quickly in favor of merely checking reaction to movement. She had already checked Tali's vitals more than once but Tali could hardly blame her. Here she was with no suit, no adverse responses, no trouble breathing. Even she still couldn't entirely register it.

Since she awoke to a rather unpleasant sight, she had been given a chance to calm down. Chakwas had assured her that the Commander had gone after whatever it was that had been lurking outside the quarantine and that in itself made Tali feel a little safer. She felt particularly vulnerable now, though she knew it was understandable given that her 'second skin' was removed. Everything seemed a lot sharper, more potent and almost too real.

As Chakwas turned to add some results to a datapad, Tali turned a little on the bed and glanced out the observation window into the Med Bay. She saw Garrus was standing there and a sense of warmth welled inside her. She lifted a hand and waved at him, watching his jaw fall a little slack as he slowly waved back. No doubt he was also unsure of how to take this change.

"Dr. Chakwas," Tali interrupted her data entry. "Can Garrus come inside?" Chakwas glanced over her shoulder at where the Turian was waiting. She seemed to ponder the idea for a moment, and then sat the datapad on the counter.

"You've done well so far, Tali. It might be a good next step to see how you'll react to foreign contact. Let me just ready some supplies." Tali nodded. Chakwas was a little anxious to see how this would turn out. Could it be that whatever had happened to Tali had boosted her immune system that greatly? There was only one way for them to find out but she wanted to be prepared in case things weren't that clear cut. She also hoped that this went well, because she wasn't sure if she could fight off the Commander again if she felt she needed to be at Tali's side.

Medical supplies at the ready, she reached over to the comm and told Garrus to come inside, assuring him that she was prepared. The Turian was cautious as he moved through the scanners, not changing into the sterile suiting at the doctor's request.

Once inside, he looked between the two silently.

"So.. um. How is she?" he decided on speaking to Chakwas.

"All the tests are coming back quite positive, but Garrus, you are welcome to ask her yourself." Garrus glanced to Tali and she grinned at how baffled he appeared, like Chakwas had asked him to talk to the wall.

"How are you, Tali?" he finally managed.

"I feel...good," she said. "A little strange, but good." He nodded.

"You look good," he said and she smiled again, enjoying the compliment. No one really ever told her that, but most Quarians rarely got comments on how they looked for obvious reasons.

"How does it feel without the suit?" he asked.

"Cold," she said. "My suit usually regulated the temperature to optimal levels for me. And these pants don't fit quite right." She lifted her leg to show him how the human Cerberus uniform pants Chakwas had provided her with rumpled awkwardly at her knees and pulled too tight in the front."

"I don't think there's a market for Quarian clothing," Garrus remarked. "I guess we'll have to get something custom tailored."

"Yeah." Silence settled between them awkwardly for a moment. "Garrus."

"Yes?"

"Did I... I think I died."

"You did." Tali blinked at him brightly, not really expecting the affirmation of it. It only begged the question of how the heck she was sitting there before him now.

"What happened? Did Cerberus...?" Garrus shook his head, bowing it a bit before looking her in the eyes again.

"No. Zim did."

"What?"

"I don't know more about it than that. All we know is we got back to the Normandy and he was here, with you."

Tali looked deeply troubled, her fingertips fiddling together, lacing and unlacing. Garrus noticed her unease and moved closer to comfort his comrade, a hand moving to her shoulder. She jumped a little, startled by the contact and caused him to do the same.

"Uh, sorry. I'm just not used to..." Her eyes flickered to his hand, still hovering from where he'd jerked it back. She looked at it as well and reached out to him carefully resting her hand into his open one. Garrus curled his talons around them and rested his other hand over the two.

"It's good to have you back, Tali," he said lightly. She smiled and he returned the gesture with his own semi-toothy grin.

"I guess that settles that," Chakwas noted. "The next step would be to see how you fare outside the Quarantine Bay. Do you feel up to it, Tali?" Tali looked between Chakwas and Garrus, a little bit nervous to leave the room without the suit to protect her. She had come this far, however, and gave the doctor a small nod. Garrus gripped her hand and helped her slip off the bed, her legs still a little wobbly. She straightened up but held tight to the Turian's hand as she moved, not entirely conscious of it. Garrus followed her, giving her hand a supportive clench as she headed for the door.

They moved through the scanners and the door to the Med Bay unlocked and wooshed open with Chakwas' clearance.

"Tali!" Tali jumped backward against Garrus and he had to move to catch her from stumbling and falling to the floor, hoisting her back up with his hands under her arms. He glanced up and they both looked at Shepard in the doorway. They waited for a million things to come spewing from their Commander's mouth; girlish squealing, reprimands that this was unsafe for Tali, something about what the status was with the Tallest, but she said nothing. Just when Garrus was about to ask her if she was okay, she moved forward, grasping the Quarian in her arms. Tali was surprised, but more from her Commander's action than the shock of contact. She returned the embrace, enjoying how Shepard's warmth contrasted with the overbearing cold on her skin. Behind her, she felt Garrus' talons leave her arms to rest on Shepard's, brushing them in a comforting gesture. The three old friends stayed silent like this for a time, knowing that no words would convey their collective relief and happiness. With friends like this – no; for family like this Tali was glad to be alive.

* * *

Jack lay on her cot staring up at the rather bland and shadowed ceiling of her quarters. She liked it down here and rarely saw fit to leave. Here it was quiet and dark and no one bothered her. There was no worry about the nerds in engineering talking to her, and even the Krogan kept out of her way. She mused that she could easily take his ass down if he even dared to wander into her space. So what if he was 'pure-krogan'? Not like that made him invincible. It sounded like a fun enough idea, though she suspected Shepard wouldn't have a second of it. The woman got herself in enough shit that Jack didn't understand why she didn't stop trying to fix all the problems in the universe. Most of them had nothing to do with her in the first place. Still, she kept walking to the fire for everyone else – Jack included – and somehow managed to win the unwavering alliance of innumerable aliens, two of which were thick-headed Krogan. Speaking of Krogan, it had started to smell like one had just taken a ripe alien dump on the engineering deck.

"Augh," Jack gagged a little, sitting up on her cot and waving a hand. "What the fuck...?" She stood and paced a little, noticing that the smell was getting stronger and more rank. She was about to go take up the stomach-twisting smell with the aforementioned 'Pure-One' when she remembered the announcement. EDI had come over the comm earlier and said something about staying alert for strange things. Jack hadn't paid it much attention and hardly saw a nasty smell as cause for alarm. She held her breath and moved to see if she could find where it was coming from, noticing that it seemed most potent near the back of the room.

As far as she could tell, even in the dark with a biotic flare in her hand lighting up the area, there was nothing there to cause the smell. Aside from her things and the standard fare it was empty. She tread back towards her living area when one of the floor grates rattled behind her. Instinctively, she span around and tossed a biotic burst in the direction of the sound. The grate flew from the floor and clattered against the wall loudly. Jack squinted, generating energy in both her hands as she headed towards the hole in the floor.

"Who the fuck is in there?" she called out. "Come out now and maybe I won't rip your spine out before I kill you!" Nothing responded but the faint echo of her own voice. For a moment she pondered tossing a blast down into the hole in the floor but decided against it. There was no telling what tech was down there and she wasn't going to be responsible for blowing the ship – at least not while she was still on it in the middle of open space. She paused, weighing her options, then came up with an idea.

She ignored the looks as she tromped up to the mess hall, holding up a hand to anyone that tried to talk to her. Marching straight up to the Mess Sergeant, she grabbed up Gir by a mess of his wires.

"I'm taking this," she said and turned, dragging the robot along without giving Gardner a chance to protest. Gir didn't argue, though he squealed when she pulled him away from the mashed potatoes he had been so gleefully working on. Jack didn't bother to be careful dragging him down the steps to her room and dropped him by the hole in the grating once she got there. "You."

"Meeee?"

"Yeah. Get in there and see if there's anything weird." Gir looked down at the hole and then back at Jack. She watched as he poked his head down slowly into the opening, his wires and metal appendages curling up around him. Suddenly, he jerked his head back up and, she found it surprising that he could, suddenly looked absolutely terrified. Jack, feeling a little dizzy with the smell, was not amused not moved. "It wasn't a request – get the fuck in there!" He didn't move so she went to kick him inside, but the robot latched into her leg with all his tendrils and started...crying? "Arggh! Get OFF ME!"

"S'bad! S'BAD! DON'T WANNA!"

"Motherfucker!" Jack yelled, trying to rip him away from her and doing and awkward dance in the process.

"WAAAAAAAH!" Gir screamed. Jack clamped her hands over her ears at the shrill of his voice. When she pulled them away the first thing she heard was EDI's monotone.

"I've detected a disturbance. Is everything alright, Jack?" she asked.

"Oh, yeah, just fine! I've got a fucking robot stuck to my leg and it smells like corpses in here!"

"I have not detected any beings, living or otherwise, in this vicinity besides yo-yo-yooooww..." Jack stopped hopping about as EDI's voice drawled into an odd baritone.

"That's never a good sign," Jack huffed. "Fuck. I guess I've gotta tell Shepard."

"WAHAAAA~" Gir continued to bawl and Jack hobbled with him still attached to her leg up the stairs.

* * *

"What's going on, EDI?"

"The Normandy's systems appear to be suffering intermittent interruptions of data flow – or hiccups in the data streams," EDI replied.

"Normally, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Hiccups occur sometimes and a quick maintenance scan usually zeroes in on the problem. But every time we try to run it it immediately fails," Joker said, looking to his side at Shepard. "And considering you just told me we have a zombie alien loose on the ship..." He lifted his hands in a gesture that both said 'kind of obvious' and 'you're freaking insane, Commander' in one fell swoop.

"What causes data hiccups?"

"Most commonly it is attributed to simple static interference, immensely low fuel, or a weakened power core."

"We fueled up not that long ago and aren't even remotely near to anything that would cause that much static to get past the Normandy's shields," Joker added.

"What about the AI core? EDI, can you give me readings?"

EDI's hologram remained oddly silent.

"EDI? You awake?" Joker asked. "No sleeping on the job – you hypocrite!" The hologram shivered and flickered red for a second, and EDI seemed to chuckle. Joker and Shepard exchanged a glance at this.

"Forgive me, Mr. Moreau, but I don't see the benefit in divulging such important information to human meatbags."

"Whoa," Joker said, holding up his hands. "That's a little low, there." Shepard narrowed her eyes at the hologram.

"I'll find great pleasure in opening the airlocks and watching you all slowly explode. Just...give me some time..."

"Aw, fuck! They're all going to blame me for this – I KNEW IT!" Joker lamented, pressing his face into his hands.

"Joker! It's not EDI," Shepard insisted. "EDI would never use the term 'meatbag'."

"Oh, plleeaaaase," EDI's voice drawled to a deeper tone again. "You're going to ruin my fuuuun. It doesn't really matter anyway." Shepard clenched her jaw as the voice changed entirely. "Didn't know what you were doing, did you? I don't particularly appreciate being treated like a flesh-puzzle, human."

"Where are you, you son of a bitch?" Shepard swore.

"That's not how you play the game. All your ship are belong to me!" The voice cackled before EDI's holo disappeared entirely.

"Damnit!" Shepard growled, hitting the terminal with a fist.

"What do we do, Commander?" Joker asked. She looked downright livid and took a moment to answer.

"I need Zim."

* * *

Zim was not looking particularly well when Shepard returned to the lab. He threw a tool at her as she entered, though it missed her by miles. His perception must have been off.

"Zim," she ground her teeth a moment. "I... need your help."

"How completely pitiful of you," Zim snorted.

"Listen, I don't have time for this. Your leader is taking over the ship – how?" Zim stared up at her blandly. "Zim!"

"I know."

"What do you mean, you know?"

"The message was transmitted all over the ship, Shepard," Mordin replied from his work table. "Likely the crew is very confused and possibly terrified. Should speak to them." Knowing the ship's comms were unlikely to be functioning, Shepard moved to contact Garrus via her omnitool but he was one step ahead of her. Just as she went to tap in the commands, his voice rang through.

"Shepard, what's going on?"

"Garrus, I need you to get a message to everyone that we've got a security breach. Have Miranda gather everyone in the CIC immediately. I'll keep you posted."

"Yes. What about Tali?"

"I'm fine," Tali's voice piped in over the line. "I'll stick with Garrus, Shepard. Do what you need to do."

"Alright, be careful." With that, Shepard turned back to Zim who seemed no more interested in what was going on than before. "How is he doing it, Zim?" The Irken gave an exasperated sigh.

"If I tell you will you GO AWAY?"

"It would be my pleasure, believe me."

"Considering he's taken over your AI, my guess would be he's uploading himself to your ship." Zim spoke as if he was speaking to a simpleton, and Shepard hated it, but kept her mouth shut.

"From his PAK. Specimen was –!" Mordin ducked out of the way as a tool flew at him and crashed into the wall. Apparently, Zim didn't appreciate the term. "Eh... If _Irken_ PAK is brain, then it is probable they can upload the data in the PAK to another system. One would think compatibility issues would arise, but seemingly not in this case. May be why he has not simply taken over the entire ship already."

"He had to decipher EDI's security protocols. The data hiccups!" Shepard said. "He was forcing his way in! And she probably wouldn't have even noticed anything strange because the Irken technology is completely foreign!"

"You said you'd leave," Zim intoned and Shepard scowled, turning to go.

Just as she exited she found Jack, with Gir strangely in tow, in front of her.

"Fuck, Shepard! Why don't you stay in one place? I've been up and down this whole fucking ship looking for you! And what the FUCK was that shit about the AI?"

"I'm taking care of it, Jack. What did you need, and why is Gir attached to your leg?" Jack rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips.

"He's a new fucking accessory, okay? There's this weird smell coming from under the floor in my bunk. I tried to get this little shit to go down and see what it was, but he wouldn't go." Shepard looked to Gir again who trembled and clung firmly to the girl's leg. The sight confused and unsettled her at the same time.

"A smell? Like rotten flesh?"

"Yes. How the hell did you know? Is Cerberus pulling some sick shit again, because I swear I'll -"

"No!" Shepard interrupted. "But you may have found out where the Tallest is hiding."

"Tall-da-who-da-what-the-fuck-now?" Jack asked, her face contorting. Shepard was already on her way to the elevator. Jack lifted and dropped her arms in disbelief.

"Figures the boogeyman would be under my fucking bed."


	12. An Opening

CHAPTER 12: AN OPENING

Tali had always considered herself a rather perceptive Quarian. Ever since she could remember she had been able to grasp new concepts easily. Despite this, she found herself faced with a conundrum that just wouldn't register logically in her mind. The Normandy was in emergency mode, seemingly infected with an Irken virus, and somehow _she_ had become the focus of the entire crew. Though she considered most of the attention to be genuine concern, she couldn't help but noticed their wonder at seeing the first unsuited Quarian. She supposed that she couldn't blame them since she hadn't properly left the med-bay until then, but all the sudden attention made her uncomfortable if not a little dizzy. She did her best to answer their questions and ignore some of the more probing up-and-down glances that made her feel even more naked than she already did.

"Get used to it, Tali," she murmured under her breath as she rubbed her increasingly aching head. "Things are going to be a lot different for you now..." She didn't even want to think what sort of reaction she would get when she returned to the Flotilla.

"Excuse me." Kasumi's smokey voice somehow carried over the din. Tali felt her nimble fingers wrap about her upper arm. "I need to borrow Miss Zorah for a moment, Commander's orders." Tali glimpsed the telltale conspiratorial smirk on the woman's lips and let herself be led away from her company to a more spacious corner of the CIC.

"Thank you," Tali said.

"No problem," Kasumi smiled, folding her arms with one hand to her mouth. It was a posture she took whenever she was feeling thoughtful. "I can tell when a hostess is uncomfortable at her own party."

"I'm not sure I'm going to get used to this," Tali said with a small sigh.

"You will, eventually. If history has taught me anything it's that Quarians are excellent at adapting. But that doesn't mean you can't do it in style." Tali tilted her head, granting the thief a questioning look. With a small flourish, she produced a tightly wrapped parcel and held it out to the Quarian. "Call it a welcome-home gift." Tali folded the package over in her hands carefully and pulled away the outer cover to reveal an intricately folded set of clothes. Before she could say anything or ask a question, Kasumi beckoned her towards the cockpit. Happy to be away from the bustling crew, she followed and watched as Kasumi soundlessly stepped up behind the pilot's chair and crouched before planting her hands over Joker's eyes.

"AH! What?" Joker exclaimed, lifting his hands from the console.

"No worries, Mr. Moreau. Tali just needs to borrow your cockpit for a minute."

"Not that I'm adverse to playing peekaboo with a hot woman, but you do realize we have a rogue alien roaming the ship, right? Sneaking up on people right now is likely to get someone hurt – namely me."

"I assure you, I'm very gentle...most the time." Tali couldn't help but quirk a small grin at the pitiful noise Joker made in his throat as she ducked to one side of the cockpit to shed the ill-fitting clothes in favor of Kasumi's gift.

"Wait... I hear clothes coming off. What am I missing?"

"Don't move, Mr. Moreau, or I'll have to take drastic measures," Kasumi cooed near his ear.

"I'll show _you _drastic," he warned, barely masking the slightly playful and perverse tone in his voice.

"Ah. Like a glove," Kasumi removed her hands from the pilot's eyes as she rose to stand once more.

"What? Oh." Joker turned his chair to follow Kasumi's gaze to where Tali stood in a suit that was only a shade or two away from being a perfect match for the thief's. It had been hand-modified to better accommodate the Quarian's anatomy, a fact she was thoroughly grateful for.

"This is much better. Thank you, Kasumi."

"Any time," she replied and swayed over to Tali, reaching over her shoulders to tug the hood up over her head. "I figured it might help the transition a little bit if you had something closer to home... Besides, I'm not about to lose the only other member of the shrouded-girls club that easy." It was only after Tali's chuckle faded off that the two women noticed Joker's hushed chanting.

"Kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss...!" He paused as they continued to stare at him. "Don't you dare take this from me."

"I already took something from you," Kasumi noticed, holding up his wallet. Joker's face fell and he glanced down at his pants, and then back at the thief.

"I...what? But...," he sputtered, trying to shift and check the pocket at his hip. Kasumi pressed a hand to Tali's back to usher her out of the cockpit, stopping to lean over Joker's shoulder and drop the wallet in his hands before following. Joker gripped the leather in his hand and let his head hit the back of his chair as he simultaneously wondered how she had done that and tried not to find it extremely hot.

Tali stumbled a little bit as they returned to the main room and held her head as Kasumi caught her by her shoulders.

"Are you alright?"

"I just got really dizzy all of a sudden."

"Hm. We should probably have you looked at, just to be sure."

"I'll go see Mordin," Tali said. "Chakwas can't get to the med-bay right now. He's my best bet." Kasumi nodded and made to lead her to the lab, but Tali politely waved her off. "I'll go on my own...if that's okay. I just need some space." Though Tali could easily see her concern beneath the shadows of her hood, she was grateful that Kasumi granted her request. Sticking close to the wall and as far away from people as possible, she headed into the lab.

Noticing her discomforted posture when she entered, Mordin set aside what he was working on and approached her. She didn't pay immediate attention to his questions, distracted by the sight of the small Irken on the other side of the room struggling to work.

"Tali." Mordin's voice called her back to reality. "Should remain in CIC with crew. Is there a problem?"

"Yes. Sorry. I'm feeling kind of nauseous."

"Hmn. Possible reaction to foreign stimuli? Perhaps caused by interacting with crew members," he hypothesized.

"I was doing okay before."

"Contact with numerous individuals at once may be too strenuous for your immune system. Too many 'new' bacteria and allergens. System overload. Should be taking exposure slowly, though not under your control given the circumstances."

"Yes," she agreed. Her attention was abruptly pulled back to the Irken when he let out a frustrated growl and kicked some of the already scattered tools across the floor. "Mordin... What's Zim doing?"

"Trying to repair PAK."

"PAK?"

"Irken synthetic life support system and brain. Must have gotten damaged on the Massive." The Salarian shuffled around his desk looking for something before finding it in a storage compartment near the window. "Administering an immuno-booster and antibiotics. Should help symptoms." Tali nodded and wished she hadn't, watching him administer the injection as her head continued to swim. She recalled wondering just how much was contained within the small, unassuming pod.. Now it seemed that the endless source of tools and gadgets also played a very vital part to Zim's survival. She was a little perplexed by what exactly Mordin meant by 'brain'.

"Brain?"

"Yes. Irken PAK is what controls the body. Believed Irken Tallest to be dead when he was brought aboard the ship and then...," he paused and gave a sniff with a hand to his mouth. "Appears that PAK reanimated the body."

"That's equal parts intriguing and...disturbing." She still hadn't been able to quite shake the unsavory image that had greeted her upon awaking. If what Mordin said was true and Zim's PAK was as damaged as it appeared, the Irken was in a very dangerous situation. "He's obviously not well, Mordin. Shouldn't you help him?"

She gestured towards Zim as he caught himself on a synthetic leg. Two other new extensions from his PAK were bustling about the damaged area working to repair it. Though they seemed to be doing their job for the most part, they occasionally began to flail in random directions, ripping apart the very circuits or wires they had just fixed. Mordin gave Tali a troubled and torn stare,

"Will not allow assistance. Have tried. Becomes hostile. Concerned about damaging him further should I try restraining."

"That's ridiculous. He's malfunctioning," Tali said, perturbed at Zim's continuing pig-headedness..

"I can HEAR YOU," Zim declared from the corner. "And I am NOT." Tali ignored the remnants of her swaying vision as the immuno-boosters went to work and ventured towards Zim. He was in need of help and was acting entirely juvenile about it. If the situation was as dire as Mordin said, she wasn't about to let Zim kill himself out of pride. There were still too many questions he needed to answer.

"Zim. Your PAK isn't working. You aren't going to be able to fix it on your own. Just tell us what to do and we can help you fix it."

"And let you get your filthy hands all over my insides? NEVER! You'll probably just try to steal the Irken technology!"

"Enough is enough. I've been having a really bad past few days. I don't have the patience for this." Closing the gap between them, she knelt down behind him and tried to get a good look at the exposed PAK circuitry. Obstinate as ever, Zim instantly closed up the pod, pulling in all his internal tools and legs, save for one small hatch that seemed to have jammed. "Zim! I'm not joking! Let me look at you or I'll have to use force!" She wasn't kidding, either. The Geth she had taken down to deactivate and remove parts from hadn't gone down without a fight either, and she had always won.

"Don't you threaten ME, Tali!" he snorted, whirling around to face her. "I'll DIE before I let you poke and prod in my PAK!"

"That's the point, bosh'tet! You WILL die!"

"RIDICULOUS! Zim does not DIE! I'm f-f-fine!" he stumbled a little and unintentionally bashed his head into the side of one of the counters. "GIR! Stop that stupid singing!" He pulled relentlessly on his antenna and Tali watched him shake his head and march back and forth. "My Tallest! Why, my TALLEST!" Suddenly, his PAK surged violently enough to throw him to the ground. "Tallest... Tallest...Tali..my Tallest...Tal..."

"Kee'lah! Zim!" Tali declared, coming to his side as Mordin followed suit.

"Vital signs nonexistent..," Mordin said as he ran a scan through his omnitool. Tali felt her stomach lurch with a twinge of panic until she remembered what Mordin had told her. Lifting her own omnitool she scanned the PAK

and ran a diagnostic. Though the results came back with numerous errors due to being unable to read the alien technology, one reading told her all she needed to know.

"The PAK is still functioning, but the power is weak."

"Tali Zorah," Mordin caught her gaze. "I will try to resuscitate body, but cannot survive without functioning PAK."

Tali paused for only a second, instantly realizing what he was asking of her..

"Hand me those tools." 

* * *

Shepard estimated that she had managed to suit up in record time when she made a hasty detour to her cabin. She felt much more in control of the situation with the slew of weapons at her back and her pistol firmly in her grip. When the elevator opened in engineering and her cautious footfalls echoed in the emptiness it aroused uncomfortable memories of when her crew had been kidnapped. The Normandy felt hollow and lifeless in times like this, but if the Tallest could hear her in the silence, then she could hear him as well.

Adjusting her weight to take the steps as quietly as possible, she descended into Jack's quarters and was immediately greeted with the foul smell she had mentioned. Tallest Purple had been in such a bad state of decay when they stole his body that she assumed it couldn't possibly get any worse. She had been wrong. Reaching up, she adjusted the filters in her helmet. Using the reserved oxygen in arguably breathable air was a bit of a waste, but at least she wouldn't end up vomiting in her own helmet.

Her eyes zeroed in on the misplaced grating at the back of the room as she headed in that direction. In her mind she weighed the possibilities of what she might be facing down here. Purple had been in the process of being dissected, so she couldn't imagine his biological body was in condition to move much. If she could find his location it would just be a matter of disabling his PAK to cease his actions. Shining a light from her omnitool into the hole in the floor something reflected that seemed out of place from the metal poles and wiring below. She crouched to get a better idea of what it was and found that it was definitely not something solid.

Knowing that it was too risky to start shooting randomly for fear of damaging something vital in the Normandy, Shepard opted to holster her pistol and pulled out her Sniper Rifle. Peering through the scope she realized the meaty thing in the shadows was actually quite long and wrapped around itself like a slimy snake. It wasn't something she could easily forget and she easily recalled it as the dripping mass that Mordin had showed her before. Readying her gun, she aimed and fired a shot into it. It sputtered and drooled from the hole, but did nothing she had expected. Perhaps Purple's body was dead already.

Now it was just a matter of getting to the PAK. She would have to follow his nasty trail and pull up the grating until she found the main body. She turned to head further back into the darker parts of the room but her foot contacted with something slick and caused her legs to fly out from under her. She grunted as her head smacked into the floor and immediately lifted it when something loomed into her blurred vision.

At first she thought his head was missing until she realized his body had nothing left to hold it up anymore. It lolled raggedly from side to side as his synthetic legs dented their tips awkwardly into the metal around him to hold him aloft. She moved to push up on her arms and slipped again in what she could only assume was a strange mucus pouring from a slit in his throat where Mordin had been inspecting the region. Every now and again something barely resembling a breath choked through it.

"You know...it wasn't always like this," his voice, clearer than she had ever heard it came over her comm, transmitted through the Normandy's systems. "It used to be easier. We would conquer you. You would cower and become our slaves. Worship us as your rightful superiors..."

"Look how well that worked out for you," Shepard huffed, trying to get a grip on her rifle that had slammed to the floor mere inches from her when she fell. One of purple's forelegs slammed violently between her hand and the gun, just barely missing her fingers. She scooted backward, pulling her hands close to herself as the Tallest followed and surrounded her form with his legs.

"Yes. Sometimes they would rebel, defiant just like you... In the end we always won. Even in this state...we're still winning..."

"Could have fooled me."

"Not even they could destroy us. They infested me with their filth.., Forced Red into submission...But they did not destroy us...Didn't know how...Because unlike you organic travesties...we are more."

"The PAKs..," Shepard played along as her mind raced to find a way around him. She felt something hit her leg and realized that one of the rotted organs had fallen out of his gaping lower cavity. She kicked it aside with a small gag. As he leaned over her form she noticed a thick bundle of wires protruding from his PAK leading back into the grating on the floor; his connection to the Normandy. Her eyes darted around her, tried to gauge her location as she continued to push herself very slowly across the slick floor.

"Hm... Either you've got a brain cell or two or someone's got a very big mouth..." Shepard paused, watching his synthetics move around her while the rag doll head hung, dripping and gagging sickeningly above her.

"Zim," she said and watched the few remaining moving parts of him freeze.

"I thought it was a trick of your AI...thought I saw him..."

"EDI?"

"Nuisance...can't scrub it... Just like Zim... He'll be the second to go." Shepard wasn't naïve enough to ask who the first was. A million scenarios ran through her head. If she was lucky she might get out of the situation with minor wounds and hopefully no infection from the Irken bodily fluids. No matter what she imagined, she knew that her priority was disconnecting those wires. "Don't even think about it... I can read your vitals through this ship...and if your pulse is telling me anything you're about to make a very...stupid...move."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Shepard quipped as she rolled towards Jack's bed and grasped for something she prayed fervently was there. When her hand wrapped around the grip of the pistol she had a split second to roll away before her shoulder nearly got skewered. As she rolled to her back and took careful aim she was, for the first time, grateful that there was very little left of Purple's body. Rising up as far as she could, she jammed the barrel of the gun up into the brittle mess of his core and fired, once, twice, and one more time before he managed to pull away, PAK sputtering. As he tore around the room, four of the wires split and ripped from his PAK due to damage. The remaining mass released under the distress of his panicked motions.

Shepard had barely gotten to her feet before he disappeared into the hole once more.

"Shit," Shepard swore.

"Hey, Commander," Joker's voice came over her comm, startling her. She would have felt embarrassed for being so jumpy but he would never know.

"I'm here."

"Just letting you know that I've regained some control over the Normandy. It also looks like EDI's programming is being restored."

"Assuming control." Shepard heard EDI's familiar tone.

"Not funny, EDI," Joker said flatly.

"EDI, status report."

"I have gained access to primary systems, but I am still attempting to bypass the Tallest's corruptions in our subsystems. I will have to reformat numerous sectors to reach functionality. It is nothing that should directly affect the crew, but it will take some time to complete."

"Great... Can you tell me the location of the Tallest?"

"I detect movement in the ducts connected to the CIC."

"Garrus.," she called over the line.

"Shepard. What's the status of the Tallest?"

"He's worse for wear if you can imagine that, but he's headed your way," she replied, taking the stairs two at a time as she headed for the elevator.

"I'll prep the team."

"I'm on my way." 

* * *

"This doesn't look right," Tali mentioned, wiping a bit of perspiration from her exposed brow. Mordin looked up from where he was working to find the best way to maintain Zim's heartbeat. He'd had very little time to study the Tallest's anatomy and it had been a messy puzzle in the first place. His knowledge allowed him enough skill to correctly guess how the organs functioned in tandem with each other. So far, though, he hadn't been able to sustain a pulse. "The schematics that you gave me from the Tallest's PAK are different than Zim's." She didn't even bother to mention that the construction of the PAK was thoroughly confusing her in the first place. It was a wonder she had noticed the difference at all.

"Perhaps a result of Reaper indoctrination. May have discovered Irken's minds would not be affected like organic lifeforms. Rewired PAK instead."

"Sovereign did outfit Saren with implants so I guess that's possible...but..." Tali stopped, unable to voice her concern but unable to quell the nagging feeling that there was something important about this. Were all Irken PAKs constructed differently? And if not, what did this say about Zim? She shook her head to clear the questions. This was not the time for them. She needed to concentrate and focus everything on getting the PAK working or there would be no answers, no Zim at all. With nothing to rely on but her instincts and skill, she began to work piecing together the intricate circuitry. "Come on...come on..." she chanted, eyes darting between the wires she was reattaching and Zim's limp body in Mordin's arms. A rattling noise from above gave her pause.

"Mordin...did you?"

The doctor's eyes met with hers only briefly before the body came crashing down on them. Tali glanced up as what was left of the gangly body rose above them. Her eyes rushed to Mordin and Zim, both of which were not moving after the impact.

"Mordin!' she called out. "Mordin! Are you okay?" What was left of the Tallest lurched over her, pushing her away from the others with two of the metallic legs pinning up under her arms. She frantically kicked her legs, struggling against the still relentlessly overpowered synthetics. It drug her along until she was pinned to the wall, the Tallest's legs embedding deep in the metal. "What do you want from me now?" she yelled at the misshapen creature. "You want to kill me again? Is that it? Go on! I dare you!"

She may as well have been having another dream because she could hardly believe what she was seeing. Though she screamed at the Tallest to do his worst, she wasn't prepared to die again. She also wasn't prepared for what she saw as she happened to look up at the already shorting PAK. The world seemed to jerk out of slow motion as Zim drove the laser sealant tool she had just had in her own hands into the base of the Tallest's PAK. The body reared in retaliation, legs skittering trying to buck him off, but Zim was obstinate and held on despite how it slammed him about. Every time he managed to get the leverage, he wrenched the PAK further out of the Tallest's deteriorating spine. Tali imagined if he could still scream, Purple would have been wailing. Instead, the metal of his legs squealed and the machinery of his PAK popped and screeched from its earlier mutilation.

Tali lept to her feet and rushed the wavering Irken form, wrestling it to the floor as Zim wrested the PAK off of Purple's back.

"Sever the control nerves!" he declared.

Tali looked around and was startled when something skidded against the floor to her knee. Looking up, she saw Mordin looking at her purposefully as he restrained the other flailing legs. Tali grasped the medical cutter in her hand and raked it over the tubes holding the PAK to Purple's spine. The burning smell was nauseating but the two quickly came apart and within less than a minute the body collapsed beneath them.

The Quarian, Salarian, and Irken collapsed to the floor and looked between each other, and even Zim began to crack an awkward grin as Shepard barreled into the room with Garrus and Kasumi behind her.

"Is everyone okay?" she asked, looking as though she wasn't sure exactly what had happened.

"Fine... You're running a little late, though," Tali teased despite herself.

"Looks like you had it under control," Garrus commented, nose crinkling up at the mess they were buried in.

"OF COURSE, squawking BIRD man!" Zim spoke. "No one defeats Zim! NO ONE!" Garrus gave Shepard a crooked look and she waved a dismissive hand before turning to Zim again.

"Good to see you're feeling better." Zim gave her a smirk that she was starting to become accustomed to.

"Let's get what's left of this thing incinerated... Zim...," she begrudgingly tried to keep her tone respectful. "What should we do with the PAK?"

"GIR!" The robot somersaulted into the room with a perfect dismount and Zim handed him the wrecked PAK. GIR grinned as wide as a robot might and gripped it like a sandwich, promptly taking a large, crunching bite out of it.

"Not what I would have done, but close enough," Shepard mused. "You're pretty useful when you want to be, huh?" GIR looked up at her from his snack and then made a noise akin to a hiccup before coughing something unusual and floppy onto her foot.

"Wha... Is that my-? MY FISH!" Shepard squatted and grasped at the gasping creature until she managed to cup it in her hands.

"YUMMY!" GIR squealed as Shepard looked at him sourly and stalked out with her pet in a rush to get it back into the tank. Garrus shook his head and helped Tali and Mordin to their feet before following the Commander out.

"Quite the unsavory experience...and yet...enlightening," Mordin said as he brushed some remnants of the Tallest from his coat sleeve.

"Always could find the silver lining, Mordin," Kasumi said with amusement. "Glad you're all okay... I might recommend a good scrubbing, though..." She tried to maintain a pleasant face but pinched her nose before exiting the room in haste.

"So much for fresh new clothes," Tali said as she wiped what she could from her own garments. When she looked up she noticed Zim had removed and was inspecting the inside of his PAK. "I thought you couldn't remove your PAK." Zim whirled and Tali watched as the tubes she had seen before reattached Zim's PAK to his back. He tried not to look suspicious and failed. Marching over to her with his hands folded behind his back he looked up at her.

"Ten minutes..." When Tali gave him a questioning look he growled and continued. "I can survive ten minutes without it. How else am I supposed to upgrade and repair it? Not that I'd expect you to understand."

"Oh, I understand just fine. I repaired it just a bit ago... But I don't suppose you would recall seeing as how you were kind of dead."

"I was not DEAD!" he puffed up. "You...did not..." His tone was testing. Tali nodded.

"You're standing there yelling at me, aren't you?" Zim's antenna fell backward and he gnawed on his tongue inside his mouth. Tali couldn't stop the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she watched him struggle to accept it. "All with my 'filthy' Quarian hands." She held them up and waggled her fingers, watching as he cringed. "So...seeing as how we're even now... How about you tell me just how and why you brought me back?"

"Your... Your LEGS ARE STUPID!" he exclaimed before turning and marching speedily out of the room. He ignored the crowd as he passed through the CIC and headed for the elevator, realizing at the last minute that he had left GIR in the lab. Deciding it was better to just let the robot do what he wanted, he waited until the doors had closed before he discretely pulled the PAK from his back again and inspected it.

His expression grew uncomfortable when he had trouble finding anything wrong with the repair. This just didn't happen. How could it? Disgruntled, he reattached the PAK again and crossed his arms over his chest.

He would admit nothing.

* * *

A/N: Hope you all enjoyed the latest! I'm so glad I could finally get it posted. I know that a lot of you are curious to know how exactly Zim revived Tali, and I promise you it will be explained soon. ;)

To epsilon7466Mk2: That line is brilliant and I will DEFINITELY use it in an upcoming chapter! XD


	13. Sorry I Asked

CHAPTER 13: SORRY I ASKED

It had been a long while since she had dreamed, much less about her brother.

She had never particularly liked him, finding him thoroughly grating on his better days. He insisted on talking to her a lot – a habit she had always loathed in him. Her father had once told her that sometimes people just liked to talk, though he deemed most of her brother's ramblings as insane as everyone else did. She never thought he was insane – she only wished he had been born without a head.

Giving the picturesque view from her office barely a glance, the head of Amazing and Extreme Discoveries, Inc. settled into the chair at her desk. It was a proud chair that would put that of even the most well-funded evil mastermind to shame. It was also one of the last things her father had built for her before he vanished.

The e-mail was still open on her desktop, written but unsent. She was still debating on hitting the button. Correspondence like this to people like these guaranteed that she would have visitors soon. She hated people, especially people with questions. And there would be questions because there had been nothing but questions since the excavation.

The press and the researchers had all been turned away at the door as she leered at them from the high-rise. It was painfully pathetic just how long it had taken them to realize the truth behind the decrepit old house; the very truth that Dib wouldn't shut up about all through their childhood. Even before Earth had joined the galactic community, he was screaming about aliens...about Zim. Constantly. The memory was enough to give her the beginnings of a migraine.

Reaching into the top drawer of the desk she pulled out a vintage laptop that looked like it could withstand a nuclear blast and set it aside. Without a second glance she sent the message on its way and stood up to return to her living quarters and to the bed her dreams had forced her to abandon.

"Have it your way, Dib."

* * *

This was not going to be easy.

Shepard ran through more than a dozen scenarios in her head as she descended from her cabin towards the CIC. She had just finished a rather lengthy conversation with Admiral Hackett, explaining everything that had happened since she last spoke with him on Earth. It was difficult not to feel like an idiot when describing some of it, given that it hardly sounded sane. At the very least she was talking to Hackett and not, say, the Council, who probably wouldn't have believed a word of it and laughed at her expense once the comm was closed. Hackett was, and had always been, a completely different story. Even if he hadn't been there when they had discovered the Irken pod, he would not have dismissed her so quickly. As a rule, he held a healthy amount of skepticism but he knew her better than most.

After Shepard gave him the details of the latest events on the Normandy, he echoed her concerns that she ship needed to be decontaminated. The Irken race was still very much a mystery and there was no telling what sort of foreign bacteria they might carry, especially a rotting one. He had made arrangements for the Normandy to dock at an Alliance space port and that's where the tricky part came in.

In order to properly eliminate any possible threats, the ship had to be quarantined and entirely evacuated. Joker hadn't departed the ship since he'd planted his rear end back in the cockpit. Two years of being grounded had made him anxious about leaving his post ever again. Shepard was determined to get him to go peacefully, and if not, it wouldn't be the first time she'd packed his ass out.

Luckily for her he seemed to be in a particularly good mood when she arrived, muffling a laugh about some thing or another.

"What's so funny?" she asked, resting her hand on the back of his chair.

"Oh! Commander!" Joker managed through his laughter as he wiped the tears from his eyes. "I'm SO glad you're here. You have no idea.'

"Good to feel wanted, but care to enlighten me further?" she asked, a crooked smile crossing her lips.

"Haaahh," he sighed and gestured to EDI's holo. "You tell her... I don't know if I can keep a straight face..."

"While I was doing a routine check of the Normandy's systems I discovered the remnants of the data that Tallest Purple had been attempting to upload. Mr. Moreau's amusement stems from a cluster of data that he found particularly amusing," EDI explained.

"Zim told me that the Tallest was uploading himself to the Normandy. How can that be funny?"

"A great deal of the information is currently inaccessible, but I have been able to play back what may be considered 'memories', some of which involve Zim."

"Okay, so did you find out anything useful?" Shepard was startled when Joker busted up laughing again and she gave EDI a puzzled look.

"It seems that Zim may have not been forthcoming about his true purpose in the Irken Empire."

"Not that I expected any less from him, but I'm still waiting for the supposedly funny part, here."

"He's not an Invader," Joker finally sobered up enough to say. Shepard gave the pilot a blank look and then lifted her hand to emphasize that she needed a little more information. "The Tallests never sent him to Earth... They had banished him for botching some prior operation and he, um... 'quit being banished'." Shepard rubbed her eyes a little bit. Of course Zim would quit banishment. It was a thoroughly Zim thing to do. "They pretended to give him a mission to get rid of him...and then he landed on Earth by mistake."

"And no one noticed this?"

"See, that's the funny part," Joker chuckled. "According to the Tallest, he was never successful with any of his plans and most of them completely backfired on him. It seems like all he was really good at was annoying people. There's one record where he contacted the Tallests and wouldn't stop screaming their names for three hours straight..."

"Guh," Shepard sighed, glad she hadn't been on the receiving end of that. "Wait. Didn't Zim ever realize that it was a fake mission?"

"Whenever Zim contacted the Tallests for a routine check-in, they perpetuated his beliefs that he was on a genuine mission. It was likely an attempt to prevent him from returning home," EDI replied.

"And that saved him from suffering the same fate as the rest of them," Shepard said, awed at the irony of it all. "EDI, are you certain the Tallest's files are not a danger to the Normandy?"

"Positive. The key files that were needed to override the Normandy's systems were destroyed when I regained control."

"Good. Send what ever you have left of those memories to my personal console. I want to take a look at them myself."

"Understood."

"Now, Joker..."

"Yeah?" he asked, still unable to wipe the grin off his face. Shepard suspected it wouldn't be there much longer.

"I've forwarded you some coordinates for our next destination. Set a course and give me an ETA when you're done."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Oh..., and there's one other thing."

* * *

Tali tapped another sequence into the console and rotated the holo schematic. It was getting closer, but she still had to work out how the connectors functioned. Irken technology was unlike anything she had seen before, but she was far from believing it was impossible to decipher. She had, after all, just recently repaired an Irken PAK using only Quarian knowledge and skill. It was all just a matter of discovering the nature of the puzzle pieces and then fitting them all into place. Taking her usual post in the engineering deck gave her comfort and a sense of normalcy after the chaos that had ensued only hours earlier.

There was no telling what exactly Irken hardware was made of, though it's qualities were very similar to most metals. Since the Normandy didn't exactly have a store of the material she decided that Palladium would be the most appropriate candidate for a replacement. All in all it seemed like a fairly straightforward repair if only she knew the specifics of the internal connections.

Tali brushed a hand over her eyes, still finding the sensation as foreign as ever. She had to be going mad, she thought. Whatever compelled her to waste her time on something like this completely eluded her now. Everything considered, Zim was the last person she ought to be helping. His behavior certainly hadn't merited any sort of kindness, and yet she still felt driven to do this. As she leaned on the console and let her eyes wander over the schematic, she pondered the logic of it all. She was a Quarian, raised to assist her crew mates any way possible, to repair anything broken. Zim had somehow given her a second existence, one unbound by the restrictions of her enviro-suit. When the Tallest loomed in on her, he saved her from something gruesome a second time.

Shepard had once said that she owed Cerberus nothing for resurrecting her. She felt absolutely no need to bend to their will because the Illusive man thought he deserved her gratitude. Their predicaments were near identical, except for one thing – Tali had been given a life that no Quarian had. Was she to forget how loathsome, loud, obnoxious, rude and self-serving the Irken was because of this alone?

Yes.

She sighed and shrugged her shoulders, defeated. Whatever his reasons, something in Tali would not let it go. If she didn't repay him somehow she would feel indebted to him forever, and that really..._really._..was not something she wanted to be. There was no telling where the miracle of her invigorated immune system would lead, and the idea of it becoming the breakthrough her people needed made her ignore the gritty details.

So she worked trying to replicate the arachnid-like Irken legs to the best of her ability. Though his PAK appeared to be in working order, the secondary set of legs Zim used to make himself feel taller were thrashed. Whether or not he would accept them, she figured the replacement would be enough to show her gratitude, as strained and conflicted as it was.

Zim had no idea what she was doing. All he knew was that he didn't like the look of it one bit. As he dangled precariously from the ceiling on what was left of his synthetic appendages, he directed an agitated glare at the back of the Quarian's head, almost willing it to burn a hole there.

She hadn't noticed him there when she entered the engineering bay, and he remained undetected for the following four hours of her stay. More than once the squishiest parts of his innards urged him to leap forth and interrogate her about what exactly she was doing with what appeared to be Irken technology. He wanted to scream about how he had been right about her intent to steal Irken technology and berate her for putting her inferior and disgusting fingers in his PAK. It made him feel squirmy and itchy thinking of what she had done to him, what she may have done to his PAK.

It was so unsettling and he quaked so fiercely with unfathomable rage that he couldn't even muster the slightest sound. Somewhere in the universe, pigs took to the sky in splendid, graceful gaggles. Zim was silent.

The silence was instead broken by an unusual visitor: the frog-faced man who talked far too much. Zim watched him proceed across the ramp beneath himself and almost felt a deep-seeded urge to growl or hiss as he approached Tali.

"Miss Zorah," Mordin addressed Tali. She had heard his purposeful footfalls when he first entered, and turned to greet him in return. It wasn't often that Mordin ventured out of his lab aside from the occasional mission, so she was a little surprised.

"Mordin, what brings you down to my neck of the Normandy?" she asked, noticing that he was packing a medical container in his arms.

"Lab has been quarantined," he sniffed. She wasn't sure, but Tali could almost have said he sounded disappointed. "Did not get a chance to properly diagnose you earlier, what with the imminent danger. Thought it might be best to do so now."

"I'm feeling better now, actually," she replied, but paused when she noticed how his already narrow lips pursed with a very slight twitch of his left eye. Poor Mordin, she thought. The doctor was utterly lost without somewhere or something to work on. Knowing how fast his mind normally worked this must have been completely maddening for him. "But... It would probably be good to check, just to be safe...," she quickly added. Mordin perked up in an instant and nodded, crouching to open his supply case and pull out the appropriate tools.

As Mordin checked her vitals he said, "Appreciate your cooperation. Jack not so helpful."

"Jack?"

"Thought it best to inspect anyone who may have come into contact with Tallest. Jack is particularly violent when sharp things are involved. Quite ironic, actually." With all Jack's tattoos, Tali could see his point, but was more distracted by the 'sharp things' part. Mordin, like the good doctor he was, seemed able to read her mind. "Inoculation." She mouthed an acknowledging 'oh'. "Finger, please."

Tali obligingly extended a singular finger which Mordin extracted a blood sample from with a small, unassuming tube that just barely pricked her. She rubbed it against her others until the sensation faded and then turned back to her work when it seemed like Mordin had become distracted with his readings. It wasn't until he started making repeated 'hmming' noises that she returned her attention to him.

"It all looks good, right?" she asked.

"Hmm," Mordin repeated, his large eyes narrowed and skimming rapidly over a small screen on the handheld analyzer.

"Right...?" Tali felt a twinge of nervousness from just how involved he seemed to be in that thing.

"No...no...no."

"No?"

"Yes."

"Yes...? Which is it?" Keelah, she KNEW there had to be a setback to not needing her suit! Was she going to start growing tentacles or would her fingers start falling off, first?

"Yes... Yes, you are fine," he finally granted her some relief. "But not normal."

"Well, I would suppose not," she huffed, dropping her arms helplessly to her sides with this emotional roller-coaster he was putting her on. "My immune system is different."

"No."

"No? What-?"

"Yes, immune system is different." He sniffed again with a breath so deep she could see his shoulders shrug through it. "But DNA is not normal." Tali felt her lungs seize up in what she could only assume was the beginnings of a panic attack.

"What about my DNA?" she dared to prod. Mordin's eyes flickered up to her and then back to the tool in his hands. His mouth quirked. "Mordin!"

"Irken." Before Tali could muster any sort of disbelieving noise from her already gaping mouth, something clattered down between herself and the doctor.

"LIES! You're LYING!" Zim declared, waving his small arms at the doctor as if it posed some sort of threat. Mordin merely raised a brow at him and then proceeded to run comparative scans since he had so conveniently shown up.

"Irken what? My DNA is IRKEN?" Tali interrupted.

"No! He's LYING!" Zim insisted, turning sideways to alternately face them both.

"No lies. Data speaks the truth. Irken DNA is present," Mordin replied coolly. The small Irken flared, antenna rearing up in agitation as he snatched the analyzer and chucked it away and it clattered down beneath the walkway somewhere unknown.

"What did you do, Zim? Why do I have Irken DNA?" Tali demanded, looming over him. Zim scrunched back beneath her shadow while Mordin extracted an extra scanner from his pocket and resumed his data crunching.

"You DON'T!" he replied. "Why would I even THINK of sullying my wonderful DNAs by putting them in YOU!"

"It was YOURS?" Tali squealed. Zim began to look more like a dying fish than an Irken with the way his mouth flopped open and closed.

"WHERE ELSE was I supposed to GET IT?" he finally yelled back, and then immediately looked like that really wasn't what he wanted to say. Tali's expression turned three shades of mortified and she felt her knees grow weak as she looked desperately to Mordin for some sort of consolation.

"Ah-ha," he hummed in a world of his own. "Mutation not entirely Irken."

"Not that that's better but I'll take what I can get," Tali breathed.

"Only 99.158 percent of cells mutated." Tali felt her palm hit her face before she realized she was making the gesture. The smack seemed perfectly appropriate.

"Okay... okay... I'm not going to let this be a bad thing," she said after a moment. "I am alive...and I'm healthy...and..." Her lip quivered "...still a Quarian...barely.."

Zim stood as tall as he could on his tiny, natural legs and crossed his arms indignantly. "I just made you better."

"Ha!" Tali couldn't help herself.

"Since Quarians have been searching for immuno-deficiency cure for years... Not exactly an incorrect statement." Tali eyed Mordin sourly, though it passed right over his head since he wasn't looking at her. He mumbled to himself about something being fascinating. Tali and Zim stood exchanging none-too-friendly gazes.

"You make no sense, whatsoever," the Quarian frowned.

"I wouldn't expect your tiny brain to understand the greatness of Zim." he retorted.

"At least my brain isn't also my backpack."

"Irken biology is highly superior."

"Yes. Lucky for me I got your genes AFTER I had grown more than three feet tall." Tali tilted her head and gave him a smirk. Zim pursed his lips and gave her a few rapid up-and-downs, then squinted.

"I see what you're doing...," he said slowly, waggling a finger at her. "You're trying to use your alien mind tricks on me to make me think that because YOU have Irken DNA now and that you are unreasonably tall despite your inferiorness that you are like the Tallests! Well! You are in for a world of BRAIN-HURT because you ARE no Tallest! You will never BE a Tallest! Never a Tallest to Zim! Never a Tali-Tallest! No matter how TALL the Tali-Tallest is!"

"Tali-Tallest?"

"I said NO!" he said, stamping his feet and clenching his fists.

"Zim?"

"Yes, my Tallest? Er - Tali? Tali-TALLEST? ARGGHH! Don't TRICK ME!"

"Ah, Zim appears to be responding to the DNA alteration," Mordin spoke up. Both Tali and Zim started, having completely forgotten he was there. "Invader Irken is subordinate to the taller Irkens...or the 'Tallests', so it is logical to see Tali as a superior. Zim, is Tali stimulating your primordial instincts?" Zim stared at Mordin with a terribly disgusted and almost humiliated look on his face.

"Speak no more of your prime dials, frog-beast!" he seethed. "How DARE you accuse Zim of ...of-!" He glanced shakily over his shoulder at Tali and then hunched over making a retching noise. "I am going to be sick!" He lurched away from them, grasping at his throat and making a completely dramatic show of an exit.

"GIR! I need my BUCKET!" his voice echoed through the hall before the door to engineering closed. Tali closed her eyes and took a cleansing breath before turning her focus back to Mordin who was grinning as wide as any Salarian could.

"Thought that might work," he said. Tali gave him a thankful, if not slightly confused look.

"Were you serious?"

"Always."

"Yes, but I mean about... Zim thinking of me as a superior."

"Likely that the cultural beliefs have been quite literally 'hard-wired'. But you are not one hundred percent Irken... Hybrid more proper term. Still point eight-four-two percent pure Quarian that may force him to rebel against instincts. Though...may want to recalculate in margin of error for chaos factor."

Tali flexed her fingers a couple of times before turning back to her console. There had been a lot of mystery surrounding her miraculous return, but if this was the kind of answers she was getting she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer to the next biggest question:...why?

* * *

"We will be docking in precisely twenty minutes, Shepard."

"Thank you, EDI," Shepard replied from her perch overlooking the galaxy map. To her right, Kelly glanced up at her from her terminal.

"Doesn't Joker usually notify you of our ETA?" she pointed out. Shepard chuckled tiredly at the question and rubbed at the back of her neck with a hand.

"He's...not talking to me right now." Kelly didn't need to ask why, being the almost overly-perceptive person she was. She knew that the Normandy was being quarantined for decontamination. She also knew that Joker rarely ever departed from the ship despite her advice that it would do him some good. It seemed he had no choice in the matter now and that fact had reduced him to childish retaliation; aka the silent-treatment for his dear Commander.

"You have a new message on your private terminal," she remembered suddenly. "Shall I forward your messages to your portable console when we depart?"

"Yes, please," Shepard replied as she descended the steps to check her e-mail. There was only one, though she didn't recognize the address. When she opened it, the message was garbled in computer language but slowly began to decipher itself. Strange.

_Commander Shepard,_

_Since you saw fit to remove a perpetual thorn from my side, I suppose you can help end this endless headache as well. I have information on the Irkens that I highly doubt Zim has shared with you yet. Contact my secretary on the following frequency if you feel so inclined. Or not. I don't really care._

_G.M._

_CEO of Amazing and Extreme Discoveries, Inc._


	14. Shadows

CHAPTER 14: SHADOWS

Admiral Hackett had seen many strange things in his life, a great deal during his years of service in the Alliance. Anything where aliens were involved tended to stretch far beyond the norm for humans. He had discovered that this same foreign oddness had a habit of following Commander Shepard around. Her squad mates were almost entirely alien, and the remaining humans were far from average and mundane. Somehow she managed to earn their loyalty in ways no human would have ever dreamed and he was constantly thankful that she was still faithful to her Alliance roots. Anyone else with this sort of backing might have been a concern, and she was always acquiring more, each one stranger than the last.

Though he could mentally find justification of her choice of comrades so far, he was having a difficult time deciding what, exactly, this little green man offered. So far, all he had done was stalk around, yell a lot, and insult passing officers who had done nothing to instigate such aggressive behavior.

"Thank you for arranging this for us, Admiral," Shepard said, giving his hand a firm shake when they had met up. She seemed to take no notice of the small alien's tirade behind her.

"Our doors are always open to you, Commander," he replied. "I was disturbed to hear of the events on the Normandy. I take it your crew is unharmed?"

"They all came out alright, if not a little shaken up. The Irkens are still very new to everyone, and an undead one doesn't exactly put forth a good impression."

"I have a feeling they don't do that often," he noted, his eyes training on the Irken again briefly. "It's probably safe to bet that the galaxy still has many surprises for us."

"Some less pleasant than others," Shepard said through a strained smile as Zim began hollering at the humans on the lower deck while he clung to the railing of the docking bay.

"We've arranged boarding for you and your crew while we do a thorough examination of the Normandy. The process should take forty-eight hours at most."

"Excellent. I'm sure they'll be excited to get some down time."

"I HATE THIS!" She heard Joker exclaim from across the port.

"It seems you're going to have your hands full, Commander. I have my own duties to return to. I trust you'll find every thing in order," Hackett mentioned, and she was almost certain she caught the beginnings of a sympathetic smile cross his normally stoic face. Once he had departed she turned and marched to the center of the cluster where her crew had congregated.

"Listen up, everyone! We're going to be here for a couple of days while the Normandy is checked out. The Admiral has informed me we have been granted room and board and I expect you all to show the utmost professionalism while you are here. There will be no fighting, no discharging of weapons, biotics, or headbutting!" Shepard watched a distinctive part of her crew ruffle at the restraints. "I mean it! If it so much as see you thinking about any of this so help me -!"

"BOW before ZIM, puny humans!" Shepard cringed and marched over to the railing where Zim and his robot had apparently taken to hurling something akin to spit wads at the marines below. She reached over and grabbed the Irken by his collar and Gir by whatever was handy.

"Unhand me!" Zim squirmed. Gir merely giggled, amused at being upside down.

"Am I going to have to assign you a babysitter while I'm away, Irken?" she huffed.

"You're leaving?" Garrus piped up. "Where are you going?"

"I received a message from someone on Earth that I plan to go meet. It shouldn't take me more than a few hours. But I'm not leaving until I'm certain the station won't be blown up before I get back." She eyed Zim as he dangled in her grasp. He crossed his arms and waggled his long, segmented tongue in her direction. "You have my orders. Dismissed."

As the crew dispersed, Joker hobbled up to her and crossed his arms with a defiant tilt of his head once he was at her side. Glancing between him and the Irken, the expressions were not all that different.

"Can I help you, Joker?" Shepard asked.

"I'm going with you."

"What? No, you're not."

"Yes... I am," he emphasized. "You booted me from my ship and I'm not about to go plant my ass and sit idle in some Alliance issue white room."

"I don't even know what this is about, exactly. I might have to defend myself for all I know."

"Then give me a gun. I can handle it." Shepard sighed deeply.

"I'm going too."

"What? Absolutely not!"

"You kidnapped me from my base on Earth before I could properly outfit myself with supplies. Or would you rather I let my robot eat the brains of your precious Alliance humans?" Zim glared with a disturbingly promising grin. In her other hand Gir squealed and clapped his hands together in anticipation.

"What is this – harass the Commander day?" Shepard asked, incredulous.

"Shepard," the Turian approached from behind and rested his talons on her shoulder.

"Oh, Garrus, don't start-" He rumbled with a vibrating chuckle in his chest.

"No," he assured her. "I was just going to say that you should take a couple of us with you to Earth just in case. Besides, not all of us are exactly...comfortable...staying in an Alliance station. We would much rather keep busy."

Shepard looked between the aliens in her hands, her pilot, and lieutenant.

"Fine. Who else wants to come?"

* * *

"Joker, you had better land this thing fast or I'm not going to be responsible for someone losing a limb!"

Although the entire ride in the Alliance shuttle down to Earth's surface had turned into one scream away from a nightmare the pilot seemed to be enjoying every second of it. He had insisted on driving and his mood seemed to improve drastically once he was behind the controls, so much so that he seemed oblivious to the anarchy in the back seat. Shepard, on the other hand, was ready to pull her pistol.

"Get your feet out of my face, Zim!" Garrus growled. Normally quite in control, the Turian had had just about enough.

"Get your squawking bird-dookie face away from my feet!" Zim retorted. "GIR! Stop pulling my antenna!"

"Eeeehehehe! Dookie!" GIR cackled and pulled on them harder.

"AHHH!" Zim screamed.

"Shut up! Shut UP, or we're turning this shuttle RIGHT AROUND!"

"Shepard Commander promised we would get to see Earth," Legion peeked up from behind the conglomeration that was Turian, Irken, and robot, his optical panels flaring animatedly.

"It's a figure of speech. Legion," Shepard huffed a breath.

It seemed to take much too long before they entered the atmosphere and passed the clearance checkpoint. The doors were flying open before Joker had the shuttle properly grounded. Garrus fell out one side while GIR and Zim tumbled out the other. Shepard moved to help Garrus to his feet while trying to cool her head as Joker and Legion departed the shuttle in much smoother fashion. Once on his feet, Zim began and pointed march in one direction while Shepard made for the other. When she realized the Irken wasn't following, she stomped after him and seized him by the jacket.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Let GO of me!" He smacked her hand until she released him. "I'm going to my base!"

"Not by yourself, you're not. People will see you!"

"Not an issue for Zim! GIR! Disguises!" He snapped his fingers and the two whipped on what Shepard could only hope had to be a joke. GIR had thrown on what appeared to have been a child's dog costume that failed to accommodate his awkward structure. On a proper model it may have appeared like an adorable puppy, but he simply looked an stuffed animal that had been filled with junkyard debris with and had been stabbed a few times for good measure. Zim's disguise was only so sad in that it was completely ineffective. The oddly styled wig on his head looked like it had been licked by an Earth cow one too many times, and how he thought the gigantic contacts that simulated human irises and pupils would help anyone overlook the fact he was green was beyond her.

"No. Just...no," Shepard said, covering her eyes with a hand while holding the other out in a 'cease and desist' gesture. "Legion?" Without even having to be given the order, the Geth grabbed up both Irken and robot, not even phased by how much resistance Zim gave. GIR simply allowed himself to be dragged across the floor.

"Commander Shepard." The woman that greeted them at the port exit didn't strike Shepard as familiar. Her features were dark, and if not for the way her skirt billowed to the floor the Commander might have assumed her dress had been painted on.

"That's me," she said warily as she and her troupe paused before her. "Can I help you?"

"My name is Miha Etzi. I am here to escort you to my employer's estate."

"And who is your employer, exactly?"

"The CEO of Amazing and Extreme Discoveries. You received the correspondence. That is what you are here for." There was no question in her tone, as if she simply knew everything for a fact. It wasn't something Shepard liked and it made her feel anxious. How could this woman with a seemingly permanent frown know what she had read?

"You couldn't have possibly known I would come."

"Of course you would. You are Commander Shepard, and Commander Shepard has an insatiable curiosity. Not exactly an ideal quality for a leader, but it is a fact." The anxiety was gone now, and had been placed with full blown agitation. For someone she had just met, Miha was quickly becoming one of her least favorite people of all time – not a good list to be on. She was almost as bad as the Asari Consort on the Citadel had been, but at least Sha'ira attempted to look pleasant while she invaded your personal and mental bubble.

"Fine. Let's say I am here to see your boss. Where do I need to go?" Shepard managed to stay civil despite her more unsavory urges.

"I will take you in my car," Miha replied. Her eyes roamed over her pack, not bothering to hide her obvious distaste. At the very least she seemed too preoccupied with judging them to notice the Irken in the Geth's arms. "Follow me." Joker sidled up to his Commander as he limped along with the others.

"She better be careful when she sits down or that stick up her ass is going to go straight into her brain," he murmured. Shepard snorted back a bitter laugh and nudged him to signal that he needed to be quiet no matter how funny that was.

* * *

In the city, the skyscrapers always seemed to be competing with each other to see who might break the skyline first. The ones that soared above them now where no different, but when the tower that was AED headquarters came into view, Shepard mentally crowned it king. The building was very tall and very narrow compared to its neighboring counterparts which were strangely few and far between. Where the bustling structures clumped and clung to each other vying for just a little more space in the wide expanse, the corporate tower stood singular, dark and proud. The thought of trillions of stairs came to mind, and elevator rides that took over an hour simply to get to the high-rise. Luckily, Miha allayed those fears by pulling into a parking garage three quarters of the way up the building's height.

The walk to the elevator, and the trip up to the stark and empty secretarial office were done in a complete and oppressive silence. Even Zim seemed to have his ever present words stolen from him. When Miha reached her desk at the far end of the room, she turned with a sharp flourish and clasped her hands in front of herself like the strictest matron.

"You may enter the chamber," she said with a gesture to the door behind her. "But they must stay here."

Shepard glanced between those in her crew, and though it was apparent none of them liked the idea, they all silently nodded their agreement. Except Zim, who merely continued to glower at her, and Gir, who expressed nothing at all except that his hands were suddenly very fascinating.

"Fine." Miha bowed her head once and turned to open the door for the Commander. Once she had stepped through, she had barely a chance to think before the door slammed behind her and left her alone in the very dim room.

She stood there, letting her eyes adjust to the dark as she wondered what sort of trap this was. She refrained from calling out into the shadows for a response, which never led to anything good. It was only when she took a testing step forward that the light shone in the distance. It illuminated the form of what she assumed was another desk, and a figure sitting behind it. Cautiously, she made her approach, fingertips ready to seize her pistol if the need should arise.

"Could you walk a little faster? I don't have all day," came the voice from the desk, raspy and unamused. Shepard took her steps a little quicker and came to stand before the shadowed figure who's eyes seemed even darker than the shadows that framed her face.

"You might want to install a few more lights," Shepard noted.

"Why? I like it like this. Except for this..." she outstretched a long, lithe finger towards the solitary light on her desk – the only one that was turned on.

"You sent me a message," Shepard changed the subject as she tried to ignore the bizarre vibe she was getting. "About the Irkens."

The woman's other hand shot out to something on the desk and ushered it forward. "There it is." Shepard reached out and plucked up the object, finding it much heavier than it appeared.

"What is it?"

"It's a computer."

"Okay." A heavy sigh followed, accompanied by an eye roll that confirmed she did, in fact, have eyes.

"It's my brother's computer. He was obsessed with the Irkens, and Zim, which, for some odd reason, you decided to bring back to Earth."

"He's under my supervision."

"Yes. Supervision. Good luck with that."

"If you don't mind my asking," Shepard interrupted the snark. "Who are you exactly, and who is your brother?"

"I am Gaz. And he was."

"Was, what?"

"Was my brother. Dib is dead."

"Dead...? Dib...?" Shepard blinked. "Dib is your brother?"

"Was," she reiterated.

"And he knew Zim?" Gaz sighed deeply again. Questions. There were always questions.

"Everything you wanna know is on that computer. I don't feel like playing twenty questions."

"You're all just a chipper bunch, aren't you?"

"Research is my business, Commander, not sunshine and moonbeams."

"Fair enough," Shepard shrugged and there was a space of silence. "There is one thing I want to ask."

"Too bad," Gaz replied, leaning back in her chair enough that Shepard just barely see the whites of her eyes now. "I'm a very busy woman, Shepard. Find your own answers."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Shepard replied and turned to go. It was obvious she was going to get nothing out of this woman, and the longer she stayed in her presence the more dreadful things began to feel. "Sorry for your loss."

"That makes one of us." Shepard's eyes focused on the door, barely visible in the distance. When had the room gotten so large, she wondered. It appeared as though the exit continued to stay a firm distance from her, and it didn't help that she couldn't even see her own feet on a shadow cloaked floor. "There's one more thing."

"Shit!" Shepard about dropped the laptop in her grasp, drawing her pistol as the air before her moved and she was greeted with those dark eyes once more. The woman before her quite literally loomed, though she didn't seem to be much taller than the Commander herself. As a new light beamed from overhead while the other behind her vanished, her eyes adjusted and focused on the form ahead. Very pale, her hair long and crunched into jagged looking curls about her shoulders, she peered through the light at Shepard. "Honestly, can we please drop all this spook bullshit? It's getting old."

Gaz huffed a breath that might have been a sound of amusement, though even her mouth appeared unable to fully form the smirk on her face.

"You take a foreign pod willingly on to your ship. You fail to kill the alien inside when you have the chance. You come to my office with a Turian, a crippled pilot, a Geth, and said alien in tow. And you see fit to pull a gun in my face when you have no idea what's around you." Gaz took steps towards Shepard as her words echoed through the room, though not as much as they aught should the room be entirely empty. "If you were meeting anyone but me you would have a situation on your hands."

"And I don't?" Shepard challenged, watching what she could see of Gaz closely and blatantly ignoring the grinding sound of metal in the far reaches of the room.

"I'll admit it. I've seen the reports and I've read the news. I never thought you would live up to the hype, but it seems you're as insane as they say."

"Thanks, I'll take that as a compliment."

"You should. I like insane," Gaz replied. She lifted a hand and snapped a finger and suddenly Shepard felt something hit her wrist, causing her pistol to go spinning to the floor. Her eyes darted back to Gaz, whose expression had become unreadable again. She reached inside the jacket of the business suit she was wearing and retrieved a small case with and OSD. "Give this to Zim when you find him." Her arm flourished outward and Shepard reached up to take the disc, eyes narrowing.

"He's in the other room, you know."

"I do know. And I know he is not." The CEO moved to her left, appearing to float rather than walk. "I'll do you a favor, Shepard, since you're doing this for me. I'll answer one question, but then you have to leave." Shepard pursed her lips together, not particularly enjoying this little game, nor feeling like she herself was the playing piece. Still, she thought on it and finally decided.

"Is Zim the only genuine Irken left?" One of Gaz's brows raised in the dark. For a time it seemed like she had changed her mind and planned not to answer at all. Instead, the unthinkable happened, and she split a smile. It was a wicked one, something Shepard expected might greet a small child from under their bed or in their closet.

"No."

And like one of those monsters, she was gone as the light vanished and was replaced by that of the open door ahead. Somehow, it had drawn closer in the last few moments, and she could see Garrus and Joker just outside it when she looked. Not daring to spend another moment in Gaz's office where unseen things made skin crawling noises, she made a hasty exit.

"Where's Zim?" she asked when she noticed he was, indeed, missing. The robot, too.

"He said he had to go do 'his business'," Joker replied, gesturing to the restroom door to their right.

"And you believed him?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know what Irken bowels do, Commander? With the fit he was making I thought he was about to explode," the pilot retorted. Everything with Zim was a fit, Shepard replied, though only in her mind. She strode for the door and knocked.

"Zim? Are you in there?" No answer. She glanced back to Miha at the reception desk, who couldn't have appeared less interested.

"Are there windows in this restroom?"

"No," she replied. Garrus pushed by and kicked open the door with one heavy thrust of his taloned foot.

"There is now." He looked to Shepard and she pressed her head into her hand at the sight of the massive hole in the outer wall of the room.

"Goddamn it."

"Commander," Miha's voice came close. How she had gotten so near without making a sound was a mystery, and all Shepard knew was she hated how stealthily these people moved around. "The CEO has instructed me to give you access to one of our vehicles for your departure."

"Thank god!" Joker breathed, tugging on the bill of his hat. "The thought of those stairs about killed me."

"That's very generous...," Shepard replied.

"Return to the parking garage from which we entered and you may have your pick."

"Seriously? Sweet!" the pilot exclaimed. Miha scowled at him before handing Shepard a clearance card and returning to her desk. Shepard blew a lock of hair out of her face and looked at Garrus.

"Little help?" she asked, hoisting the ever growing number of items in her arms. The Turian chuckled lowly and retrieved the laptop, it's weight seeming to be nothing for him. As they departed and entered the elevator which automatically set their course for the parking garage, Shepard decided they had better find Zim before he began to cause too much trouble around the city. At least he was restricted to the use of his short little legs to get around, and as such might be easier to catch up with. There was no question about where he was headed, but Shepard wondered how, exactly, he planned to get around Alliance security since it had been stationed at his base.

As the elevator hummed along her thoughts turned to Gaz. What was the deal with this woman, she wondered, though she wasn't sure she wanted to know. All she knew that she was connected to Dib, the one who owned the coat that Zim now wore. She could only hope that the contraption in her Turian mate's arms carried more answers than questions.

And if not, there was always the Shadow Broker.


	15. A Little Assistance

CHAPTER 15: A LITTLE ASSISTANCE

Zim believed a lot of things when it came to the subject of himself. One of the most prominent was that there was nothing he could not overcome. There were minor setbacks and the occasional accident that was never his fault, but his concept of personal defeat was nonexistent. Upon returning to his base he found the ramshackle building under the surveillance of the humans. There was all manner of security drones patrolling the area along with at least five armed men. He silently cursed them for making such a wreck of his base, never once thinking that it may have simply been natural decay from all the years he was asleep.

He perched in the branches of one of the few, yet tallest trees he could find and surveyed the situation. Shuffling back the jacket, he tapped the surface of his PAK and retrieved a small device from inside.

"GIR!" he called, and the robot swung down from a higher branch on which he had wound himself.

"Sir!" he saluted, eyes fading from blue to dutiful red.

"Attach this to one of those floaty thingies," he replied, plunking the smaller of the two items into GIR's hand. The robot took off, and only two seconds later Zim heard the squawk of a very unhappy bird. "Not the diseased-feather monster, GIR! The floaty things by the humans!"

"Ohhh," GIR replied and ripped the transmitter from the bluejay, unceremoniously ripping out a few of its feathers. Once Zim was satisfied that his minion had properly attached it this time, he began fiddling with the control in his hands. As he suspected, human robotics programming was as primitive as ever, and ludicrously easy to hack. For any Irken it would have been smeet-play to find the string of code that allowed the drone to communicate with the others. For Zim, it was almost painful to waste his time on it, but a mere moment later he had them all strung together and surrendering to his whims. Now, all he had to do was have them attack the humans...

He started laughing; couldn't help himself really. It started as a throaty snicker, and swelled into an outright guffaw as his finger hovered over the button that would send them to their doom. As the small army of sentry-bots closed in on their unsuspecting victims from behind, he could barely see them through his eyes as they began to tear up.

One of the soldiers turned around, likely feeling the looming presence of his soon-to-be murderers. It didn't happen quite like Zim expected, but as the bots began to explode in sequence like a string of hovering dominos, he just couldn't bring himself to not enjoy it. They actually managed to cause more havoc this way, flying haphazardly into each other and ricocheting off of nearby buildings and about taking out the soldiers in the process. It was unfortunate that none of them actually got wounded, but the bots did a brilliant job of smashing their way through the perimeter blockade they had assembled.

As Zim scrambled down the tree, lamenting the loss of his synthetics which would have made it ten times easier, he sped for the base in the middle of the chaotic fray. Somewhere in the smoke and sparks he managed to find GIR talking to a gnome that had lost its head ages ago, and barreled through the door.

"AHH! My beautiful base!" he wailed at the state he found it in. Running into the kitchen in hopes that the passageway to his base was still working, he was greeted by the collapsed floor which he nearly fell into. "When did THIS happen?"

"I made it myself!" GIR declared as he leapt giddily onto his master's shoulders. It had never ended well when the robot did this even when he was much smaller, but now his added girth made it particularly troublesome. Balance evaporated and the two fell down the hole whether Zim liked it or not. They landed none to gently on the dark platform that he recognized as the elevator. Standing up and cracking his spine back into alignment after falling on top of GIR, he peered out of the open door. This wasn't where he wanted to be. He turned his eyes upward.

"Computer!" He crossed his arms and tapped his foot, waiting expectantly. "Computer!" Disgruntled that his base's main program would have the gall to stop functioning, he grumbled and walked over to the wall. Feeling around he found a panel and pressed it inward to allow the console to eject outward. "GIR!" As GIR hobbled over Zim snatched up one in his large collection of wires and plugged it into a port on the console.

The screen flickered to life with the unit's supplement power and Zim began tapping furiously away at the controls. As he ran through a primary diagnostic, it seemed that a great deal of the computer's main systems had gone offline years ago, only sustaining life support and some rudimentary functions. Too long, he'd been asleep too long. The Tallests never responded, and so his base never woke him up as he had programmed it to. He shuddered to think how much longer he would have been there had the Shepard human not interfered. Once the life support went, his vitals would start to fail. His PAK would enter into a repetitive loop trying to sustain him, and he would likely have ended up in suspension between life and death until that, too, failed.

No matter now. He wasn't dead and as far as he knew he was the only one left, and that pretty much made him the official Almighty Tallest by default. He refused to accept the atrocities dwelling in the Massive as such.

In a short time he got the elevator moving manually, and it groaned and creaked on its way further down, dropping a little too fast on a few occasions. By the time he got to where he wanted to be he felt like he was about to expel his digestive fluids all over the floor. Ordering GIR to stay put as he did his best to keep all his innards in order, he stumbled out and found his way to a round platform bordered with consoles and walls of large, thick tubing. He smacked away the dust and cobwebs and activated the system's database. It flickered to life, though barely, and he reached back again to rifle around in his PAK.

The jacket proceeded to get in his way enough to make him discard it in a huff.

"Dib-monkey," he said to himself, sourly. "Always in my way even when you aren't here!" Finding the plug he was looking for, he stretched the length out and hooked it into the data port. He then began to download the mission and history files into his PAK. Standing there with his arms crossed, eyes narrowed, and jaw set, he stared at the screen above as images flew past.

Amongst diagrams and schematics his antenna twitched at pictures of the bespectacled boy to whom the jacket belonged. Even now, when he knew better, he expected him to be sneaking about the base somewhere taking pictures. Maybe it all began with Dib, he thought. First Dib, then the Tallests, and then no one left to answer his calls. For all the humans and stink-beasts that surrounded him, he had found himself alone. So he went to sleep, and only woke up to find things were worse.

The data feed displayed its completion to him and he disengaged from the system. His feet carried him over to the jacket once again and he picked it up tentatively before reaching to the inside pocket to retrieve a small specimen container. He eyed the sludge inside it with scrutiny, and the memory of a dead Quarian's body filled his head.

He had to know, and there was too little time to acquire the fluid by any other means. The alien female may as well have been a dying test-tube at the time, but her cells were deteriorating rapidly. If he didn't act quickly, her dead tissue would infect the sample. There was far too little resources in that tight confines of the Voot Cruiser. Just him and his resilient, perfect Irken DNA.

It was a long shot, by all means, but he had once succeeded in combining human and bologna DNA, so this couldn't have been much harder. She'd reacted better than he could have hoped for, and as he extracted the tank fluid from her lungs, he could physically see her body coming back to life. Dry and withering flesh became warm and pliable. She had choked when he extracted the tube from her throat, but fell unconscious shortly after.

This was it. With the databases at his disposal he could finally find out what exactly the Tallests had been using to create those poor excuses for Irkens. Perhaps, once he knew the technology, he could...

"GIR!" Zim called, agitated that the robot had unplugged himself from the power feed and therefore knocked out what little light there was. He squinted in the dark and tried to make out the robot's gleaming eyes but saw nothing. "GIR! Where did you go?" The lack of response didn't worry him so much as irritate him further. He tucked the sample cube away as his PAK opened and a mechanical arm with a light on the end unfolded and illuminated the dark. The beam of was not wide enough to show him much beyond what was straight ahead, but it was better than nothing.

Shining the light into the elevator proved his initial thought that GIR was gone. Further inspection of the immediate area found no trace of him. The robot got distracted by the smallest things sometimes so there was no telling where he might have gone, and it wasn't as though he could ask the computer to find him.

His antenna began to quiver as the feeling of something creeping up where he couldn't see washed over him. He paused as the feeling grew, and just when he couldn't take it any longer he whirled and shone his light behind himself.

"GIR! What are you doing? You were supposed to stay in the elevator!"

The unblinking red eyes that shone back at him in the dark were familiar, but definitely not GIR's. The robot that stood there now was not nearly as gangly, much more sleek and far too quiet. At a glance Zim could tell that it was like the other SIRs issued back on Irk. The only problem was that he had only ever seen one other robot like this on Earth, and while its fully-functional and vicious behavior was a cause for concern, this didn't cause him as much alarm as knowing who it belonged to.

It lunged at him with deadly precision, a part of it that he couldn't see lacerating his uniform as he decided it would be a good idea to run. He screamed loudly the whole way to the elevator and it echoed endlessly off the wide walls. In a brief moment of anxiety he tried to clamber up the elevator's shaft, but found it useless without his synthetics. He slid back down to the floor just in time to dodge a blow that went through the wall, but was likely meant for his own head.

Scrambling away, he went the only direction he could and ran back to the console platform, screaming dramatically the entire way.

"GIR! GIR! Help me!" The SIR unit was hot on his tail and he ducked down in front of a console just as it smashed into the defunct hardware and just barely missed severing his antenna. Zim desperately opened a lower panel on the console and began tossing out a plethora of random items he'd stored in there ages ago. He had to stay keen as the lasers began to fire, searing through the floor as he rolled out of the way and tossed aside rubber pigs, hypno helmets, germ goggles and the like. The lasers had damaged enough of the floor for a hole to form beneath him when he finally found what he was looking for. His fingers clasp tightly around it as he fell into the dark.

* * *

"Can I keep this? I can keep this, right?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever," Shepard waved her hand at the pilot dismissively as she browsed through the contents of the laptop. The vehicle they, or rather Joker, had chosen was a luxury cruiser. It was black and sleek and the seats were plush and heated. Shepard was glad that Joker had found something else to focus on besides having been extracted from the Normandy against his will. It seemed as long as he was piloting and surrounded in leather he was a happy camper. The former was a given and latter didn't really surprise her, especially given his extranet searches during the late hours on the Normandy.

"I should go on these trips with you more often," he grinned. "I'll also take your flippant response as a sign that you found something interesting on that thing."

"Gaz told me this computer belonged to her brother. She also told me that her brother's name was Dib; the same name that was inside that coat Zim had." Joker's brows raised thoughtfully.

"So, I'm guessing he had some personal insight on the walking tactless megaphone?"

"Possibly. It seems like these are all records he kept of this research he was doing on Zim. He was spying on him, trying to expose him as an alien to the populace." She pressed a finger to her lips and murmured. "Aliens weren't normal. This was way before the first Contact War."

"Well, it shouldn't have been hard to prove, right? Zim's not exactly normal looking. Hell, he's almost standard issue 'little green man'."

"True, but for some reason no one would listen to him despite the proof." She chuckled a little, a bitter tone to her voice. "That sounds familiar."

"He doesn't look very old at all," Garrus commented as he leaned over to look from the back seat. Things were a great deal calmer on this ride thanks to Zim's absence. Garrus very much appreciated it.

"He's not," Shepard confirmed for the Turian. "He looks about ten or eleven... Hardly any taller than Zim in some of these videos."

"And you said you met his sister?"

"That's who she said she was, but she barely looked over twenty. By all reason she shouldn't even be alive."

"More and more questions by the second. I don't like this, Shepard," Garrus said.

"Me neither, but we're too far in to pull out now. Besides, the Reapers are involved and finding out what's behind them is our primary mission. Hell, Garrus, the Irken and Keeper connection alone makes this worth investigating." To her left, she saw Joker clench his eyes and shake his head as if clearing a fog from his mind.

"I think I've gone cross-eyed," he said and Shepard couldn't help but chuckle as she closed the laptop.

"Enough for now. First thing's first, we have to find Zim before he does something stupid."

* * *

The faint whirring of the SIR unit's inner-workings came like a breath in the silence. Its optics scanned the depth of the room as it descended in search of the Irken, or at the very least, his corpse. When it finally came close enough to run a scan over the bottom of the chamber it spotted the trademark circuitry of a PAK amongst the heaps of decaying tech and dust. Optics flared and rescanned as its objective flickered before its eyes, reminding it that its job was not done until it delivered Zim's PAK, with or without the body, to its master.

It skimmed over the walls with the grace of a soundless predator, finally touching down on the floor and navigating its way through the sea of wreckage below. It clawed relentlessly at the trash to shove it aside, melting the rest with finely focused lasers from the red of its eyes.

Zim could feel the heat of the lasers searing ever closer to his hiding place amongst the debris. His fingers hovered over the dial in his hand, weighing his options. The last time he had used this control he had just about been killed by his own robot. He also had no idea where GIR was at this point or if he was even functional. For all he knew, he could turn the dial and nothing would happen and then he'd be in for a world of hurt. In a few more seconds he might not even have the ability to think about it anymore.

A clawed appendage slammed down in front of him, tearing away the miniscule amount of cover he had left. He squirmed as it's eyes narrowed and fixed on him. There really was no question about it now. He cranked the dial up as far as it could go, way past the 'dangerously high' setting.

The explosion that erupted behind the SIR unit was phenomenal, Zim decided. Defunct parts went flying and smashed against the walls as the crimson eyed monstrosity emerged and quickly targeted the intruder and blasted itself full force against the robot. The SIR unit skidded back, nearly backed against the wall as GIR assaulted it, limbs and wires flying every which way as he moved.

"That's right! Fight for your master! AH!" Zim ducked away as the lasers started firing and nearly took his head off. He decided to make better use of his time and scooted off towards the elevator shaft, trying to force the console to work to call the platform down.

In the meantime, GIR had his hands quite literally full, oversized and mismatched, they easily curled around the SIR's head. They clenched in an attempt to crush it, but the SIR appeared to be made of stronger metal than he, and all he managed was a few dents before it tore away. All the lose parts of his body worked as both a blessing and a hindrance, because even though he could constrict the other bot with them, it could also grab them and toss him about like a rag doll. It was something that happened quite a few times, in fact, but none of it stopped Zim's minion from raging ahead.

The SIR unit was not so easily deterred, however, and as soon as it had GIR at a disadvantage it leapt from him and headed straight for Zim. Upon noticing this, Zim worked more frantically, and was relieved as GIR grabbed hold of one of its feet just before it was on him. The elevator was doing nothing for him, and Zim cursed at it rather loudly in Irken, smacking the barely attached console furiously against the wall.

He looked around for another option and only came up with one that seemed plausible. The only problem was finding the right moment to do it. He watched the two robots brawling in front of him, bouncing on his toes and waggling his fingers watching for the most opportune second. When he spotted it, he jumped onto GIR's waiting back and took hold of his shoulders.

"GIR! To the Voot Cruiser!" he ordered. GIR was up in the air so fast, thrusters flaring full blast that Zim found himself screaming the whole way up the chamber. The robot didn't even bother to use the constructed pathways and drove himself and Zim straight up and through everything in the way. Zim choked on dirt and who knew what else, but these discomforts were overshadowed as soon as he noticed they were being followed.

All three crashed in a tangled mess through the ceiling and into the base's attic. GIR's feet found the floor again, his superfluous appendages holding Zim behind him. The SIR crushed it's fist into the floor with a crackle of electricity rumbling up its arm..

"HAND OVER THE DEFECT," it ordered in a mechanized monotone.

"You are an INTRUDER. You must be TERMINATED," GIR replied.

"UNIT REFUSES TO STAND DOWN. RETALITORY ACTIONS WI-!" GIR whipped a cluster of wires and cords around the SIR's neck and began to wrench at the bot.

"Stupid unit talks too much." With a quick jerk of his arm, he slammed the offending bot into the ground. Though it struggled, he continued to bash it's head and fling its around almost effortlessly. Zim hung on for dear life trying to figure out how to get over to his ship without getting caught in the onslaught. He heard something clatter across the floor not far from where he clung to GIR, and felt as though something wound up inside him had just sprung loose.

"Memory disc! GIR! I need that memory disc!" he exclaimed at the sight of the small piece of hardware laying prone only a few feet away. It had apparently sprung free of the SIR unit's head during GIR's attacks. GIR turned his attentions away just briefly at the order, but it was enough time for the SIR to blast through the tightly wound cords with its optical lasers. GIR squealed with a momentarily flicker of blue in his eyes before they dulled into red again. The SIR seized him up by the head, easily starting to crunch the outdated metal inward. Zim fell to the floor as it lifted his robot off the ground and scrambled to retrieve the memory disc. He turned just in time to see the SIR give the final squeeze, smashing GIR's head into a crinkled mess. The Irken took advantage of its distraction and made for the Voot Cruiser, just barely getting inside and closing the pod as the SIR slammed into it. It clawed and pounded on the ship, its motions making an ear piercing squeal against the metal. Zim cringed and activated the Cruiser, hands flying expertly over the wonderfully familiar console.

As he ran one gloved finger over the central hologram, pulling back a trembling line, not unlike a slingshot, he eyed the SIR unit. Eyes narrowed and antenna folding back he sneered.

"You broke my robot," he said under his breath, and then slammed his palm down on a prominent red button to his left. The Voot Cruiser shook with the force, nearly crashing through the roof as a brilliant red beam culminated and fired through the SIR unit, sending it flying out of the hole seared through the building.

* * *

They were only a few miles from Zim's base when the call came. Shepard looked at her omnitool with dread, expecting that a call from Hackett meant that something had gone awry at the station. She took a deep, cleansing breath, and then opened up the comm.

"Shepard here."

"Shepard," came Hackett's voice, as calm and unreadable as ever. "I've just received reports of an incident at the alien dig site. What is your location?"

"We're just headed there, sir," she replied. "What are the details?"

"There was an explosion resulting in some structural damage, and some of the soldiers discovered what looks to be foreign technology in the resulting debris. Other than that, it's been quiet."

"Great. I'll look into – Joker, what?" She looked at the pilot as he shook her arm to get her attention. Once she responded, he pointed ahead and Shepard blinked as a tiny, spherical looking vehicle careened past them. She could have sworn she spied a little green Irken inside. "Was that...?"

"Status, Shepard," Hackett said.

"I'm following up on it," she replied simply and closed the comm. "Joker, follow that ship!"

"Shepard Commander said we would investigate the base," Legion pointed out.

"Shepard Commander is going to follow the cause of the problem, and it just went that way!"

* * *

Thane rather enjoyed times like these; quiet ones where he could allow his mind to slow and be at peace. There had been so much chaos and sorrow in the past few years of his life that it overshadowed the simpler things he used to enjoy. At the moment, he was rediscovering his love for chess, sitting across from the asari Justicar who was proving to be a worthy opponent. She would have him cornered in only one or two moves if she played it right. He didn't know how practiced she was in the game, but wouldn't have been surprised if she beat him. It wouldn't have bothered him in the slightest; the enjoyment was in the game and not in the result.

"Check," he said, folding his hands gracefully as he leaned on the table. Samara rubbed her chin in thought, her eyes a well-trained picture of focus.

"I'm quite impressed, Thane. You are well trained in this," she said.

"I've had many years to practice. Irikah and I enjoyed this game very much."

"That was your wife, correct?" she asked, fingertips tapping tentatively over her lips.

"Yes."

"Was she very skilled as well?" Thane's lips quirked in a subtle smile.

"She was the first to best me."

"A fond memory," she noticed. "I used to play with my daughters."

"I am sorry about Morinth. I cannot imagine that was easy."

"Morinth chose her path, and it was one destined to end unfortunately. I have made my peace with that."

"The universe moves swift," Thane intoned solemnly. "One day it seems as though all is right with the world...and the next -"

Their reminiscing was abruptly interrupted as a small ship crashed into the platform not ten feet away. Both Thane and Samara leapt to their feet, upsetting the chess board as smoke began to spew from the wreckage, bodies tense and ready to act. A few short minutes later, the pod flew open and Zim flew out tangled in a mangled looking array of machinery. He screamed and rolled and got even more wound up like a small mummy until he spied them ahead.

"Fish man! Assist me!" he called as he struggled. Thane blinked widely and exchanged a glance with Samara, before heading over to politely do as asked.

"What is all this?" Samara asked as the drell tried to figure out how to detach Zim from the disaster he enveloped in.

"It's GIR," Zim replied, kicking and wiggling.

"This would be more effective if you were still," Thane offered.

"I have no TIME!" He jerked and squirmed, finally pulling free. Before any more questions could be asked, he was speeding away from them as fast as his little legs could go.

"I wonder if Shepard is okay," Samara thought aloud.

"I hope so. Zim's robot look a bit worse for wear." Thane said, lifting it up by one bundle of wires to get an idea of where it's head may have gone. He was startled when it began to spasm and promptly flailed its way around him like an electronic octopus, binding up his arms. He sat, ever the picture of calm, and looked up at Samara.

"Would you mind?"

* * *

"TALI! TALI! TALI, TALI, TALI!"

Zim banged furiously on the door once he found the Alliance quarters. As the door finally flew open he fell face first onto the floor.

"This isn't Tali's room, fuck-tard!" Jack said, kicking him out of the doorway. "Now leave me alone!" Zim sat back and rubbed his head, and then marched to the next door and took a breath, then began beating his fists there. Down the hall, in the eighth room, Tali sat on her bed and listened as he proceeded from door to door to door with the same frantic approach. She had been simply spending her time with the rare peace and quiet studying up on Irken technology. Her schematics had been finished hours ago, and she was eager to get back onto the Normandy to put them to good use. Upon hearing the familiar shrillness of the Irken, she deactivated the holos projected by her omnitool. She couldn't quite hear everything that was going on outside, but she knew that no one was pleased to have the Irken screaming at their door. When the door next to hers slammed shut, she got up and decided to save herself, and everyone else, the irritation.

Zim had his fists at the ready, mouth gaping open as she opened the door. Once he saw there was nothing to knock on, he straightened up and gave her his patented glare before marching, brazen and uninvited, into her room. She merely sighed, shrugged, and closed the door behind him.

"What do you want, Zim?" He whirled around and produced an unfamiliar object.

"You fixed my PAK. You're going to help me read this."

"What is it?" She truly wanted to tease him about acknowledging her repair, but was actually too curious about what he had to bother.

"It's a SIR unit's memory disc. I need to see what's on it."

"What's a SIR unit?"

"Stop asking me stupid questions!"

"How can I figure out how to read it if I don't know where it came from?" she pointed out. His shoulders scrunched up and he clenched his teeth a moment, and then she watched him force himself to relax.

"It's a Standard Issue Information Retrieval unit, like GIR. This is from a different SIR. If I can view what's on it, I can tell what it's owner is up to." Tali carefully plucked the device from Zim's hand and turned it over in her own.

"It's owner is another Irken, I suppose? That should be great news if they're alive."

"Shows what you know," he muttered, folding his arms behind himself.

"It's not?" she asked, scanning the disc with her omnitool.

"No, because that SIR belonged to an Irken that tried to steal my mission from me. She also tried to kill me... NOT that I was threatened. I easily defeated her with my superior invader skills." Tali kept her mouth shut and let him gloat, finding it was quickly becoming the best course of action. In her head, though, she noted that he must not have fully defeated this Irken if she was still alive, and with how agitated he was about her it was likely that this Irken was much more trouble than he let on.

"'She' you said?" she prompted, finding that she may have to devise brand new hardware just to read the alien disc when her omnitool fell short.

"Yes, so?"

"Were you...?"

"What?" He looked at her sourly, looking like he wished she would stop talking.

"Were you a couple?"

"Of Irkens...," he added, raising one brow awkwardly. Tali huffed a breath.

"Love, Zim," she stated as simply as possible. The Irken's eyes widened and his fists clenched.

"NO! Never! How could you ask such a thing! She was HORRIBLE! And it was PAINFUL! All that disgusting MEAT and BARBECUE SAUCE!"

He seemed to have gone into his own world for a moment and Tali could only blink in confusion, wondering how all these things even related. She had theorized that perhaps there was a sore spot between Zim and this female Irken, and she'd only guessed at a lover's spat on a whim. This, though? She had no idea what this was.

"Sorry, I asked," she hummed. Zim marched up to her and leered the best he could.

"You should be."

"Well, I can probably build a disc reader using what I know so far... It's going to take some time." Zim slumped dramatically and rolled his eyes like an impatient child. "But... I might be able to put it together faster if I could get a better idea of the baseline of your technology."

Zim stared at her hard now. He loathed every second of this and would never have come to ask for this inferior Quarian's assistance if he had a choice. The truth was gut wrenching; his base was useless and he just didn't have access to the proper tools or supplies to make a functioning Irken reader console. He could have tried to piece something together with the inferior alien technology but it would have taken him days at best, not that he'd admit it. This Tali creature at the very least had enough knowledge to repair his PAK, and she likely knew more about the local metals and tech. And he needed...he suddenly felt like vomiting again...her.

"You want inside my PAK again, don't you?" His tone was bitter, even more so than normal.

"Just let me get a quick scan. I won't touch anything. I promise."

"You're asking to get IN ME. No one gets IN ZIM."

"Yeah? And no one strips a Quarian of her enviro-suit, either."

"I didn't do that!"

"No, but you manhandled my CORPSE, ZIM! That's way worse than a scan."

"I did NOT," he insisted shrilly. "You're not even a MALE!"

"That's not what that means," she snorted. "Thanks for noticing, by the way."

Zim flared, standing up on his toes as his hands balled into fists again.

"Do you want to see what's on this disc or not?" she interrupted his impending tirade. He settled back down on his feet and glanced numerous times between her and the disc.

"Hhhrrrnnggg! I hate you!"

"Is that a 'yes'?"

"Stupid...meddling...Quarian..stink-!"

"Still not hearing it, Zim."

"Errrrgghhhnnnnyyyyes?" It sounded painful for him to say, truly.

"It's a deal." She held out her hand to him and he regarded it as if it was the most bizarre thing he had ever seen. Tali shrugged and pulled her hand back, figuring the gesture lost on him. When he continued to stare at her hand, she began to feel a little awkward. "Is there a -"

"I can't form that pact with you, ridiculous Quarian," he smirked. "You don't have any antenna." He turned and sauntered past her, heading for the door. "Now, I have a robot to go fix, but you better be ready when I decide to do this."

"Afraid you'll back out?"

"HA! Hardly! You must be prepared or you will never withstand the shear awesome that is ZIM!" He paraded out of the room, arms high and cackling all the way. Tali watched him go and looked over the disc in her hand again.

She decided it was best not to acknowledge the fact she was actually a little excited.


	16. Contradictions

CHAPTER 16: CONTRADICTIONS

Shepard took a heavy swig of the coffee Garrus had brought her, letting it burn her tongue a little on its way down. She would have preferred something a little harder but liquor wasn't exactly standard issue at an Alliance space port. So she quietly promised herself a good long night at the nearest bar when it was convenient and took her consolation where she could find it. The entire fiasco on Earth as well as Zim's none-too-discrete return had left her feeling quite irate, and the fresh cup of joe was almost enough to calm her in all it's black bitterness.

"Hackett says that the damage was minimal," the turian said as he settled into the sofa beside her. They had taken up residence in the east wing lounge where it was quiet and empty so Shepard could look further into the contents of the laptop.

"We're just lucky this was an Alliance station. Anywhere else and we might have had a situation," Shepard replied, glancing over to him only momentarily before returning her gaze to the screen.

"It tends to put people's minds at ease when they know they have massive stocks of weapons on hand," Garrus mentioned and Shepard smirked a little. "Anything new?"

"Apparently, Zim had a severe allergy to water."

"Had?"

"He devised some sort of protection against it. He also has an aversion to barbecue sauce."

"What's that?"

"Oh, it's, um... It's a thick sort of liquid that we put on cooked pieces of meat," Shepard explained.

"Why would you do that?" he asked, lifting a hand off his knee.

"Because it's good, especially on a thick steak."

"Doesn't it smother the flavor of the meat?"

"I -," Shepard paused and closed her mouth, giving him a look that asked why they were having this conversation in the first place.

"I'm just saying."

"Forget the meat," she said. "This is the interesting part. According to Dib's records, Zim has had plenty of opportunities to lay waste to Earth, but he never did."

"He probably got distracted."

"Actually, you've hit it right on the head. This documentation shows that Zim had access to technology that he could have easily wreaked havoc with, some of which he built, if you can believe that. The problem is he never used them for that purpose. In fact, he used most of them to terrorize Dib."

"That seems...petty," Garrus said, tilting his head.

"Sounds perfectly Zim to me," Shepard snorted. "But I can't say that it puts my mind at ease. Zim has potential, Garrus. So far, he's pretty much always sabotaged himself..., but what if he ever succeeded? What if he actually _focused _for once?" The two of them sat and stared outward for a silent and disturbed moment.

"Best not to think of it," Garrus finally decided. Shepard just shook away the shiver that had squirmed its way up her spine. She shuffled through a few more files and then brightened up again.

"Could this be...?" she asked herself, skimming the data onscreen. She gestured in a grabbing motion over towards the turian and he took the hint and handed over a datapad that was sitting to his right. Shepard pulled up some of the files that EDI had uploaded to her personal hand held and compared them with those on the laptop. "Garrus, I think I just found a way to decipher the Irken language. It looks like Dib somehow managed to get a hold of a key."

"Here, let me," Garrus said, activating his omnitool to download and cross-examine the files. Shepard watched his eyes dart over the content as it began to decode. His mandibles twitched against his jaw and she wasn't sure if it was because he was amused or intrigued.

"What? What is it?"

"These files EDI gave you... They came from the Tallest, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"There's a file here on Zim...and it doesn't list him as an 'Invader'."

"Oh, that. I know. The Tallests only pretended to send him on a mission to get rid of him. EDI informed me."

"Did she tell you what his real designation is?" Shepard blinked and raised an eyebrow. The better question was did she really want to know? Garrus didn't give her a chance to answer. "Food Service Drone."

"I – what?" Shepard sputtered.

"That's what it says," the turian insisted, duo-toned voice sounding a little incredulous. "And it seems that he was scheduled for deactivation. They have him listed as an extremely dangerous...and, um, annoying...defective."

"The Tallests didn't seem to fond of him, sure, but they planned on destroying him entirely?"

"You were going to shoot him, Shepard."

"Be that as it may," Shepard said, pointing at him. "That was because he killed one of my crew."

"Yes, well, apparently he killed thousands of other Irkens, too, so..." Shepard fell silent again, her face contorting into such a confused expression it almost hurt. Zim had made a solid impression when she met him; he was rude, megalomaniacal, loud, obnoxious, insane, and mean. That was a given, but she had been in a constant mental battle with herself about whether or not he was someone to be _feared_. As unimposing as he looked, it was obvious from the beginning that his ego more than made up for his lack of height. Shepard had long since discovered how dangerous someone driven by their ego could be, and Zim was not only driven by it, he WAS it. She had accepted the fact that he must have had some intelligence tucked away somewhere given what she had seen him do, but she just kept finding there was far more to it than she imagined. With every new image or video on Dib's laptop that showed Zim constructing clearly advanced technology the worry started to return. Yes, some of the things Zim built so far were used for completely ludicrous purposes, and others completely blew up in his face, but that was the key phrase.

So far.

As she gnawed on her fingertip, Shepard began to run through the files a little more quickly. Vid after vid depicted Zim trying his damnedest to huff this young boy out of existence. What, exactly, had happened to Dib? His sister had said he was dead, but how, exactly, had he died? Zim had murdered his own kind before and was slotted for deactivation, which was pretty much a death sentence for an Irken. He also wasn't shy about expressing his hatred for aliens. Had he finally murdered, Dib, she wondered, and if so, how many more had he killed?

* * *

"GIR! Hold STILL!"

Even though his vocal box had been damaged, Zim was pretty certain that the robot flailing under his ministrations was giggling. He bashed GIR's already severely dented head with the broad end of laser tool in his hand. It seemed to sedate the hyperactive pile of metal so he returned to working on untangling and reconnecting the split wires. It was a trial working with such primitive tools and materials, but he was pretty certain he could at least get his minion back up and running with what he had. He was just a genius like that.

As per the usual, he had a million things running through his head while trying to concentrate on fixing his unit. He muttered to himself as he worked, wondering what the hell SHE was doing on Earth and why her SIR unit had been in HIS base. Stealing valuable information, probably, he sneered. He would have a better idea once he got the information off the memory disc. Most SIR units kept a record of everything their master was involved in. They were an invaluable recording and research tool for Irken Invaders, and as such whatever this particular Irken was planning was probably logged right on that disc. Zim grumbled at how close and yet so far away his answers were. If only he'd been able to salvage more tech from his base, then he wouldn't have had to ask for the help of a stupid alien!

And, of course, she wouldn't just do as he asked; she had to get something out of it for herself! Manipulative, conniving, selfish –!" Caught in up in his internal rant, he was just prying open two bits of metal that had jammed together in GIR's chest when the knock came at his door. Startled, he accidentally lost his grip and the robot's chest cavity promptly sandwiched his hand between the jagged panels.

Zim did what Zim does best, and promptly screamed.

He heard the door fly open as his large eyes started to water through the pain. Scrambling down beside him, Tali forced the panels apart so he could extract his hand. It throbbed pitifully.

"What were you doing? Are you okay?" she asked, pulling her hands away from the robot quickly before she suffered the same fate.

"What do YOU think?" Zim hissed, waving his hand at her. "This is YOUR fault!" He stomped around the room, holding the afflicted hand out.

"I just knocked on the door! Stop being so dramatic!" Upon saying it, Tali realized how unlikely that request was to be fulfilled, but seized Zim by his good arm when he came close to pull him over. "Let me see it."

"No! Let go!" As to be expected, he was instantly agitated at the gall of the gesture. How dare she touch him!

He immediately regretted it when he went to shove her with the other hand, though, as the pain seared up his arm into his shoulder. Tali merely sighed as he doubled up and showed her just how strong his lungs, or whatever it was Irkens had, were, and screamed again. She cringed at the noise but took the opportunity to extract the tiny glove from his hand to give his bare, three-fingered hand a proper look.

It was another guessing game since she really had no idea what an Irken skeletal structure was supposed to look like, but as far as she could tell, nothing looked terribly out of place. Letting his hand lay limply in her larger one, she lightly checked his wrist and fingers. The greenish skin along his wrist blotched out a shade darker than the rest and she could only suppose he might be bruising.

"I think you're fine. You should probably get some Medi-Gel on it, just in case," she concluded and then was baffled when she realized Zim had gone entirely silent. Glancing up at him with her luminescent eyes she wondered if he had fainted, but instead he was peering rather intently at his hand – at their hands. His antenna were laid back flat against his head and his jaw set firm. His other arm was lax at his side as he stood there seemingly listening to what she was saying with little to no protest in sight.

It only lasted for a moment until he realized she was looking at him and his face scrunched up as he pulled his hand away, shuffling his discarded glove back on. He flinched once or twice, in too much of a hurry to be cautious of his battered fingers. He glanced at her for a second before turning and focusing his attention on the tools he'd stowed against the wall.

"What do you want?" he asked, tone low and strangely mellow. He expected her to start bothering him about his PAK again, the stupid prying Quarian. He couldn't blame her for wanting to see how absolutely magnificent the Irkens truly were, particularly him, but she was getting thoroughly annoying about it. Yes, yes, he had let her believe that she would get a chance to study him, but she didn't really expect him to LIVE UP to that 'deal' they made, did she? HA! He planned on making sure he had the disc reader in his hands long before that would ever happen, and it would never happen.

"I brought you a gift." Okay, he wasn't expecting that. The way she said it sounded a little strained, like the idea wasn't the most appealing thing to her, but still, it was enough to make him turn around. She'd scooted across the floor and retrieved something she must have dropped before she came to his aid. Settling back on her knees, she held out a long container to him. Zim stared at it, eyes narrowing warily and darting between it and her. He'd gotten 'gifts' before, but they usually ended in pain...lots of unpleasant pain. Tali gave a disgruntled sigh and opened it for him before holding it out again. "They're replacements for your legs. I figured since yours were broken and you don't have access to any of the tools from your home world I'd see what I could do."

Gradually, Zim leaned over on one foot to look inside the box. He reached in and extracted one long piece of metal which unfolded itself in the jointed manner his synthetics usually would.

"They're probably not as good as the originals," Tali conceded, preempting his inevitable speech about how inferior she was."But I did the best I could with what I could remember. Hopefully, they work."

Zim carefully unfolded and refolded the singular leg, testing the fluidity of the joints. He wouldn't dare admit aloud how smoothly they seemed to move, or how the tiniest inkling of excitement curled up in his gut at the idea of trying them. Instead, he looked up at Tali and clamped the leg together again, making sure to put on an air of resignation.

"I..._guess_...they'll work," he said, setting it back in the box and taking the entire package now.

Tali smiled despite herself, knowing this was probably a big step for him to say something so...sort of...nice. Zim felt his mouth start to twitch and promptly bit his tongue hard to stop it.

"Was that it?" he asked, folding his arms behind himself. "I have work to do."

"That's it," she replied, getting to her feet and heading for the door. Zim watched her, his brows tilting up and lip jutting out a little when she couldn't see. What did she mean 'that's it'? Wasn't she going to say anything about their deal? Wasn't she even going to act remotely anxious about getting to study Zim? She didn't need to be so damn calm about it, like it didn't really matter. Zim squared up his thin shoulders and puffed up his chest a little. His tongue curled in his mouth as if trying to knot itself and stop him from saying what he was about to say. It probably knew better.

"Tali!" he said and the Quarian turned with her hand on the door holo. "Don't forget you're supposed to come study my PAK later."

Tali smirked and glanced upward and back to Zim.

"Oh, I didn't," she said before leaving the room. Zim felt a swell of all-too-familiar pride. Of course she hadn't forgotten! You don't forget Zim! Especially Tali! The Irken marched purposefully back to the box with his new legs inside, too wrapped up in his shiny new gift to remember his devious plan of tricking Tali and not fulfilling his side of the bargain.

* * *

What was this, he thought. Was it a feeling, an instinct, or just an eerie tickling at the back of his mind that something was terribly...wrong?

His body felt disjointed and stiff. When he tried to move one direction it moved in the other as if to spite him. Things also didn't seem to be bending the right way. He was pretty certain that he had more appendages at some point, too. Only vaguely frustrated that he was having so much trouble making sense of things, he paused and became still, letting his eyes take in the scene before him.

What were these? Tanks; cauldrons of genetic muck and mucus. Yes. He remembered these, remembered listening to the creatures as they screamed and liquified. He assured them it was all for the greater good, that they were becoming something so much better. In retrospect, the idea never really seemed to soothe them in the slightest. And why should it?

He was lying. As the bits and pieces of them coagulated with the others, they would never quite be as good as he had hoped. Even with a peppering of Irken matter they were still horribly inferior, and when there were no more Irkens they only became worse. Sometimes he almost regretted sacrificing the remnants of his people to this twisted venture...almost.

He really should have been ashamed. How could he have stooped so low, he wondered, to contaminate the once proud Irken race with this filth? They submitted willingly to his orders and walked to their deaths, programmed to do little more than obey. The Irken race had to survive, no matter how corrupt. At least, that's what that voice in his head kept telling him.

_There was no choice._

No; not after the what happened. Not after the... Strange. Where had his thought gone?

_It doesn't matter now._

He supposed that was true. There was little room to think on it anyway, especially as another image constantly forced it's way into his mind. The center of his forehead began to burn something fierce as the thought formed, feeling as if a hot spike was being driven right between his eyes. It might have been appropriate to scream with the intensity of the pain that followed, but he found his voice peculiarly absent.

_It doesn't hurt at all._

A figment of his imagination, he supposed as the vague swirl of light and colors began to take shape in his cloudy memory. A human. That human. Something in his gut wrenched at the thought of her.

He decided that he felt decidedly furious with her for getting him shot in the head. And how could he forget –

_Forget._

He clenched his eyes shut a moment, finding them dry and burning. As troublesome as the human and her pack of aliens had been, it had been Zim that had...

_FORGET HIM._

Tallest Red cringed as the voice echoed and seared through his mind. At some point he tried to find his hands to bring them to his face but he could not see them, nor manage to lift them.

The idea that this may have been troubling was muffled as he became aware of the large view screen just ahead of him flickering to life. Part of him expected to see Zim there, spouting nonsense. No picture came, only static followed by a voice

"My Tallest! Are you there?"

"I am here," he heard himself say despite not feeling the movement of his own tongue.

"Finally!" the voice on the other end huffed a breath. "I have been trying to contact you for so long! Why have you not responded to my calls? Has something happened, my Tallest?"

"Yes." The word was all encompassing and thoroughly vague at the same time. "Identify yourself."

"One of the invaders, my lord! At least I would have been if not for some...unfortunate circumstances. It was all Zim's doing!"

Red felt one of his eyes twitch at the name, but the typical rage that would have typically presented itself with mention of Zim never came. His eyes peered into the static on screen as if staring hard enough might reveal something beneath the scattered black and white. He must have remained quiet a little longer than he realized, because the voice on the other end spoke again.

"Sir?"

"Zim is not the threat. Invader, if you are still loyal to the Irken Empire, I have a new mission for you to undertake."

"Anything you want, my Tallest, but...Zim MUST be dealt with! If he is allowed to live-"

"Am I to understand you consider your personal opinions above mine, Invader? Above the Tallest?"

"No, my Tallest!" The voice began to sound hesitant, and Red really couldn't blame it. There had been a time, a great many years in fact, where he would have placed Zim's destruction as a high priority. He was a threat to the Irken race, to himself, and to just about anything sane. The tiniest Irken Red had ever seen in his lifetime was also easily the most volatile and needed to be removed from the equation. His mouth didn't seem to share that sentiment.

"Obliterate Commander Shepard." Another long pause filled the already deathly quiet space.

"A human, sir?"

Tallest Red felt his mouth form the words, but the sound of them seemed to boom from the walls rather than from his own vocal cords.

"_**Nothing stands against us.**_"


	17. Wild Card

CHAPTER 17: WILD CARD

"Can I get you anything, Shepard?"

Shepard raised her head from where she had it settled upon a hand, not realizing she had been seconds away from accidentally hitting the console face first as she drifted to sleep. Glancing over her shoulder, she rubbed an eye and offered Liara a weary smile.

"No, I'm alright." Liara responded with a small nod though her brows pinned up in concern as she folded her hands behind herself. Shepard noted this and couldn't help but feel a little amused at how much innocence the Asari was able to exude even given her position as the most powerful information broker in the universe. When it came to business she was firmly in control of everything, at times seeming to echo traits of the late Matriarch Benezia, but sometimes when she was in Shepard's company, it was as though that all melted away. Perhaps it was because they had been through so much together, or maybe Liara still harbored a hint of the crush on the Commander that she had back when they met. She had been so wide-eyed and bashful back then, stumbling over her words and becoming easily flustered when her phrasing came out all wrong. If she still felt any of these insecurities now, it didn't show, but for Shepard Liara always let a little of her former self show.

It was something the commander was grateful for, because she often worried about how much of a toll playing the role of Shadow Broker would take on her comrade. She had all the power of the galaxy at her fingertips, enough information to begin or end wars, and she was more often than not dwelling in this infernal ship alone. Feron was present from time to time, but the drell was understandably unsettled if he remained there for long intervals of time. Knowing he had been held captive and tortured on that very vessel caused nightmares that would likely take years to fade, if they ever truly did.

One thing Shepard couldn't deny, however, was that personally knowing the Shadow Broker had a multitude of benefits. Liara was more than ready to share her resources with Shepard, whom she trusted implicitly. Where the war with the Reapers was concerned, the commander had gained a substantial weapon in her court, but the databases were also useful for seeking out information on minor cases as well. When she failed to find any information on Gaz or Dib Membrane, she had known exactly where she needed to turn. Unfortunately, all she learned was that the data was more elusive than she had originally suspected.

"You've been at the console for hours. Have you found what you were looking for?" she asked, peeking over Shepard's shoulder now.

"Not. A bloody. Thing," Shepard emphasized, scrolling through the numerous info windows she had scattered over the screen. "I've pretty much given up trying to find anything on the Membrane family altogether. There are files with the names, but aside from Gaz Membrane's they're empty. Even her file is extremely sparse." Shepard gave a huffed, bitter laugh. "And here I thought the Shadow Broker knew everything."

"It is peculiar. The Shadow Broker usually locked files down, but he never personally removed any data. You never know when the slightest detail is going to be important."

"Is it possible someone hacked the ship and did it?"

"Very unlikely. I can check for any breaches in security and see when the files were last modified. It might give us a clue."

"Good idea. In the mean time, I'll keep trying to make some sense out of these blasted encoded files on the external computer." Liara bowed her head once in acknowledgment and left Shepard to her devices. As far as she could tell, the majority of the content of the laptop consisted of years and years of surveillance footage of paranormal subjects, most of which had to do with Zim. When Gaz had said that her brother was a little obsessed with aliens and the like she hadn't been kidding. Gaz didn't seem like the type to kid about _anything _really. Just when she was certain that she had seen just about enough jumpy videos of what may or may not have been a bigfoot, or a vampire, or a ghost, she had found an interesting little file tucked away amongst all the others. It looked like an archive of some sort, but it was password locked and she hadn't been able to surmise the right key.

In a last ditch effort, she had set one of Liara's decoders to work, but it seemed even the Shadow Broker's finest software would do little more than toss out phrases that made absolutely no sense.

_What in the nine hells is a mothman?_ Shepard sighed and rubbed at her eyes again. Why did this kid have to be so damned cryptic? The amount of security he had protecting half of the things on his laptop made Shepard suspect that he was paranoid about someone getting a hold of it. Given how much he appeared to want to find someone to believe his claims, it didn't make sense that he would lock all the proof away, unless he had truly found enough evidence to expose the truth.

Shepard paused, finding herself holding a shallow breath before inhaling and exhaling deeply.

Zim? He definitely had done plenty of research on the Irken. A familiar pang of worry slithered its way into her gut as she began to wonder once more about exactly how Dib had met his end. It was beginning to seem more and more likely that Zim may have been the culprit. He certainly had plenty of motive, and had tried plenty of times before...

"Come on, Dib," she muttered aloud to herself. "Your sister gave me your laptop for a reason. What secrets did you have to tell?" The laptop sat silent and expectant to her left, shining its light on the profile of her face. Raking her hand through her hair, Shepard gave the wretched computer a glare before glancing to the jargon on the console before her. "Mothman... Swollen eyeballs? What is this mess?"

"Passcode incomplete. Please repeat passcode," the laptop chimed in, interrupting her quickly souring mood. Shepard perked up, uncrossing her arms.

"Passcode" she asked. The file was voice locked? No wonder none of the manual inputs had been working. "Uh." She desperately tried to remember what she had said that might have triggered the response. "Mothman?"

"Passcode incomplete. Please repeat passcode."

"Eyeballs?"

"Passcode incomplete. Please repeat passcode."

"Mothman messy eyeballs?" she attempted, cringing at the insanity of the words coming out of her mouth.

"Passcode incomplete. Three more attempts may be made before this console will self-destruct."

"What?"

"Passcode incorrect. Two more attempts may be made before this console will self-destruct."

"Er. The mothman has swollen eyeballs?" Shepard sputtered out. She was out of her seat now, ready to bolt if the laptop did, in fact, decide to explode. "Shit! No, I mean-!"

"Passcode incorrect. One final attempt may be made before this console will self-destruct." The commander gnawed her lower lip relentlessly, trying to keep any sound perfectly muted as she scrambled through the words that the decoder seemed to have randomly thrown up on the screen.

"Swollen Eyeball Network: Agent Mothman." Shepard felt a jolt of surprise surge through her body, and she whirled to see Liara standing not two feet behind her. Her eyes darted to the laptop, which had failed to explode, but was now running up a screen full of jargon too fast for her to read.

"How did you do that?" she asked in a hissed whisper, as if she was afraid she may offend the computer into rethinking it's decision to not self-destruct.

"When I was examining the files for tampering I discovered an unusual data stream," Liara said. "Just as I was deciphering it I recognized the words you were yelling out."

"That's fine, but how did you know that was the password?"

"I didn't." Shepard stared blankly at the Asari for a heartbeat.

"You-"

"I guessed. An educated guess, but a guess nonetheless."

"Liara," Shepard intoned, shaking her head and the Asari began to crack a smile despite trying to appear composed.

"Deduction isn't a bad tool, actually." Shepard and Liara turned their attention and startled to the sight of a a third figure in the room now. It took a few seconds for Shepard to realize that he wasn't physically there, but rather he was a hologram being projected from an extension of the laptop. Still, she brushed her fingers through the light to be certain. It didn't look anything like the VIs she was used to seeing, transparent and crimson with obvious circuitry embedded into their features. This looked like a real person, like a living, breathing young boy. He stood looking up at them and Shepard supposed that if he had been human, he would have been in his early teens. The hologram reached up and adjusted the large set of glasses up on the bridge of his nose.

"Who are... Wait." Something registered in her mind then, and she realized that the long black coat he wore looked incredibly familiar. "Are you Dib?"

"Well, yes. Who are you, though? I don't recognize you from the Network. Then again, I imagine new members have been inducted in my absence."

"The Network?"

"The Swollen Eyeball Network," Liara pointed out.

"What's that? I've never heard of it."

"The Swollen Eyeballs are an elite group of paranormal investigators," Dib explained as he looked between the two of them, eyes fixating on Liara. "I'm...guessing neither of you are part of the Network, though."

"No. Pardon, but could you please stop looking at me like that?" Liara replied. Dib seemed to realize what he had been doing and smiled a little sheepishly.

"I apologize. I just have never seen an alien like you before. You're so... humanoid...and blue."

"The Asari have a lot of features that are similar to various species," Shepard said. "But I need you to focus. Are you Dib's VI?"

"Virtual intelligence?" Dib laughed like Shepard had just told an incredibly amusing joke. "Why would I use such a rudimentary thing?" He took a moment to remove his glasses and wipe his eyes, a gesture Shepard found very strange for a hologram.

"So, what? Are you saying you're alive?"

"Well, no," he replied, still shaking off a hint of the laughter. "I'm afraid that since you're talking to my uploaded personality right now then I am very much dead. I had hoped that Gaz would have given my laptop to the Network like I'd asked but..." He gave a frustrated sigh and shook his head. "She's always done whatever she pleased. Never had much of an interest in anything I did, really. Do you mind if I ask who she entrusted my data to?"

"I'm Commander Shepard. Gaz told me that you could give me information about the Irkens. That's why she gave it to me."

"Irkens?" Dib asked, setting his glasses back in their place as he narrowed his eyes. "They survived?"

"Survived?" Shepard asked, exchanging a glance with Liara. "Not exactly. Their empire has been pretty much destroyed, though it seems those that did survive are...a little worse for wear."

"What about Zim?" The expression on Dib's holo grew tense and Shepard watched his fingers flex against the fabric of his coat.

"Zim's alive." If Dib was breathing, it appeared he had released a deep sigh upon hearing her answer. Shepard was not sure whether if her response caused him relief or stress. It was difficult to tell. His reaction was actually quite similar to how Zim reacted upon mention of him; agitation with a hint of something else she couldn't quite identify. "The Tallests, however, not so much."

"The Tallests still exist, then?"

"I thought both had been killed, but we didn't know anything about the Irken regenerative factor, so I suspect Tallest Red may still be alive." Dib rubbed at his chin thoughtfully and paced a few steps in one direction before whirling on his heel to trace his path back. Watching him and noticing a striking similarity to how Zim often enjoyed pacing about, her curiosity got the best of her. "Dib, how did you meet Zim?"

Dib halted his pacing and glanced up. "He tried to take over Earth. I tried to stop him."

"You must have succeeded, given the fact the planet is still in tact," Liara said.

"To be honest, it's not that I succeeded so much as that Zim didn't," he corrected her. "Though, believe me, I'd love to take the credit for that."

"Did he kill you?" Shepard asked.

"He wishes," Dib smirked and then shook his head, "But no. I died of...natural causes."

"What do you mean? You look so young."

"The causes were perfectly natural for me," he corrected. "You see, I wasn't born like a normal human. I was actually a clone of my father, Professor Membrane – his first attempt, in fact. Unfortunately, it seems my life expectancy was not as long as I...or even he...had hoped. I was perfectly fine until one week...my body just started failing me. The parts just stopped working like a defunct machine."

"What about your sister?"

"Second attempt, and a much more successful one if you can get past the fact she's a bit crooked," he said.

"But she's still alive after so much time and she barely looks a year over twenty-five. Is that normal for a cloning procedure?"

"She's still alive?" Dib chuckled. "Why am I not surprised? Well, she always _did_ say she would see me dead one day. Not how she meant it, I'm sure." Shepard cocked a puzzled eyebrow.

"You and your sister have a...peculiar relationship, if you don't mind my saying." Dib waved a hand dismissively.

"She's always been like that. I never gave it much thought. It's just...Gaz," he said with a small shrug.

"Let's get back to Zim. You fought against him for ages. Is he a threat I should be concerned about?" Shepard asked.

"Oh, definitely," Dib replied without a moment's hesitation. "But don't tell him I said that. He'll never shut up."

"I imagine you'll understand if I need a little more explanation than that. He seems a bit malevolent but not very...," she paused and waved her hands about looking for the right word.

"Capable?" Liara offered.

"Yeah, that."

"Oh, don't get me wrong. Zim has a very high rate of failure when it comes to his attempts to do anything, but even he gets it right sometimes. When he does succeed, though, it's likely not to make a lick of sense to anyone but him."

"Like Operation Impending Doom One?" Shepard recalled. "He was very successful in laying waste to the planet... but it just happened to be his own."

"Exactly. You could not possibly fathom what his insanity makes him capable of. I don't know how he did it, but I'm pretty sure he's responsible for a great deal of my personal phobias..." He trailed off then, eyes darting left and right as he began to mutter something that sounded strangely like 'rubber piggies', but Shepard supposed she must have heard him wrong.

"Would you recommend I lock him up or eliminate him?"

"Let me ask you a question first. Are the Reapers still active?"

"Reapers?" Shepard blinked once, then twice. "You know about the Reapers?"

"Know? I knew about them before anyone else did!" he said, suddenly sounding indignant and balling his hands into fists. "But does anyone _ever_ listen to me about anything? No! They all thought I was a ranting lunatic like they always did... Even my father didn't believe me!"

"Believe me, you're preaching to the choir, Dib. They're practically on our doorstep now and no one believes _me_, either. One of them even managed to invade the Citadel. Hell, there are _pieces_ of the thing still scattered around the grounds there and they deny that the attack ever happened! Are you saying that you saw them coming even back in 2025?"

"Yes. They were the reason I founded FARR, the Foundation for Alien Research and Recovery. I amassed billions upon billions of files searching for any data I could find on them."

"How did you discover them in the first place?"

"Zim," Dib replied simply. "Numerous times I bugged his base to collect information on the impending Irken invasion." He laughed airily, turning his head with a woeful shake. "Never suspected I'd see _that_."

"What? See what?" Shepard asked, feeling very much on the edge of her seat with all this new information.

"Apparently, Irken technology doesn't react well to Reaper data feeds or communication. It jams up something fierce. Everything starts malfunctioning. I guess you could say the two different types of tech come from exact opposite ends of the spectrum. They repulse each other like opposing magnets. One day when Zim was absent from his usual attempt to fit in at school, I ran home to check my video data to see what he had been up to. His base appeared to have gone entirely haywire on him after he accidentally picked up a foreign stream of data while trying to contact his leaders."

"The Tallests," Shepard said and Dib nodded.

"As I'm sure you know, when something goes wrong, Zim doesn't handle it very well. He doesn't take too kindly to anyone messing with his base. From what I could gather, he regained control of his base's core systems and managed to send out an offensive pulse of disruptive energy at the source of the trouble."

"Disrupt me, I disrupt you," Liara said, folding her arms over her chest and bringing her fingers to her lips.

"Yes," Dib said, a crooked smile crawling over his lips. "But let me remind you that Zim does nothing in halves...and when he's mad he does nothing less than a hundred times worse. At the time all I could see was that he got his base back into working order. It wasn't until later, when I followed the transmissions that I discovered exactly what it was he had done.

What Zim didn't realize is that he couldn't contact the Tallests because they were under attack by a Reaper. The Reaper was jamming all of Zim's communications, and when he retaliated, he didn't destroy the Reaper, but he gave his leaders a chance to fight back by disorienting it."

"And the whole while he was oblivious...," Shepard said in awe, shaking her head now. It seemed like a perfectly Zim thing to do, honestly. She paused and thought a moment, collecting memories of the Massive in her head, of Tallest Purple and Tallest Red. It was obvious that despite Zim's unintentional efforts, the Irkens had failed to fend off the Reaper entirely. "I've been to the Massive. The entire thing was in disarray when we got there. But somehow, Tallest Red was still in control. He didn't appear indoctrinated like all the other beings who have become the slaves of the Reapers."

"Maybe he made a deal with the devil," Liara piped up. "It wouldn't be the first time the Reapers have used a willing host to achieve their goals. If the Irkens were suffering a hefty defeat, he may have chosen to side with the Reapers rather than allow his people to die."

"If the Irkens were that selfless, I might agree with you," Dib said. "If that really is the case, Tallest Red likely made a deal to rebuild the Empire...possibly in hopes of defeating the Reapers when his army grew large enough. If he had any of his own mind left, then his Irken pride would not allow him to remain a slave to anyone for long."

"Saren made a deal, and he eventually lost his mind to a Reaper anyway. Tallest Red will likely face a similar fate," Shepard pointed out.

"That depends on whether or not he allowed himself to be implanted. As long as his PAK was in working order, he will remain in full control of himself."

Something seized in Shepard's stomach then.

_You have...no idea... what you've done... _

They had not only overloaded Red's PAK, but Garrus had incapacitated him with a shot right to the head. As far as she was aware, up until then, he had been in complete control of himself. In an attempt to escape, they had left him for dead, or so they had hoped. Left him for dead – and left him vulnerable to the invading Reaper technology that had already infected the majority of the Massive. Shepard couldn't help but bring her palm to her face.

"Shit."

"Is something wrong?" Liara asked.

"Oh, nothing. I just gave the Reaper exactly what it wanted!" Shepard exclaimed, tossing her arms in the air and stomping about the room in a fury.

"What do you mean?" Dib asked.

"We thought we killed Tallest Red, but all we did was subdue him so the Reaper could do whatever it damn well pleased! It's probably completely indoctrinated him by now. And _now_ it has full control of the Massive!"

"How could you do that?" Dib asked, incredulous.

"I didn't know! At the time, all I knew was that my crew was in danger and we needed to get out of that bloody ship before we were devoured alive!" Liara and Dib watched as Shepard continued to storm about the floor, muttering obscenities in every language she could remember. Liara thought to cover Dib's ears for a moment but then remembered he was not physically there.

"This is why you can't kill Zim," Dib interrupted her tirade.

"What?" Shepard asked, breathless as she turned towards him again.

"That Reaper has Irken technology at its disposal now. You have no way of defending against it, but Zim has _everything_."

"Are you seriously telling me that our only chance for survival against this Reaper is that little megalomaniacal -?"

"That is _exactly_ what I'm telling you!" Dib emphasized. "Listen, I'm the last person who wants to admit that Zim is good for anything but wreaking havoc, but you've got a veritable tsunami of chaos heading your way and there's only one way to fight it."

"You said that Zim was very good at being unpredictable, Shepard," Liara said, folding her hands together and tugging at her gloves uncomfortably. "That might be just what you need." Shepard pressed a hand to her forehead and began to massage away a migraine that was starting to persistently make itself known.

"You're both assuming that I have any control over what Zim does," she said. "Yes, he's unpredictable, but that's exactly why I can't harness anything he does. What makes you think that he'd help a bunch of aliens?"

"Therein lies your challenge," Dib said, jabbing a finger at her. "But you've got one thing that you can use against Zim. He's an Irken _defect._ He's got flaws. He doesn't operate like a normal Irken. All you have to do is find out what he _will_ fight for. He doesn't need to know that he's doing it for a good cause." Shepard regarded Dib a moment rested her hands on her hips as she gnawed a little at her lower lip.

"That's crazy manipulative. I'm starting to think you spent just a little too much time around Zim... But I like it."

"Please don't compare me to him. It's insulting."

"I'm sorry, but its uncanny how similar you seem to be...except for you yell much less...and your h-"

"Don't say it! I know my head is big already!"

Shepard closed her mouth and then settled back down in the chair in front of the console. "I was just going to say that your hair looks a lot like that wig he uses in his disguise." Dib huffed up his cheeks a little and crossed his arms, furrowing his brow and looking thoroughly embarrassed.

"Off the topic of the Reapers and Zim... May I ask you a question, Dib?" Liara asked.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"You're currently standing in a ship that holds a limitless amount of information on everyone in the known galaxy. Before we accessed your file, Shepard and I attempted to find information on you and your family but we came up with nothing. Given that the owner of the ship holds a great deal of power withholding or sharing this information with certain people you might understand how difficult it would be to remove or alter the files stored here. Yet, when we found your files, they were entirely empty. Can you give us a clue as to who may have deleted the information?"

"Yeah. Me," Dib replied simply, folding his hands behind his back and rocking on his heels.

"You?" Shepard asked, turning her gaze back to the holo of the boy. "I realize that you're a pretty smart kid and all, but how could you possibly...?"

"It wasn't that difficult. I did it years ago before I handed FARR off to Gaz to ensure my family's safety," Dib said. "I recognized this system as soon as you booted me up."

"Recognized it? You recognize the Shad-.. I mean, the FARR data compilation system?"

"Of course!"

"How?"

"I wrote it."


	18. Author's Note

Hello, all you wonderful readers!

I realize it's been some time since I did an update for this story, but fear not, I do intend to complete it. I've been very busy the last couple of months moving and reorganizing a lot of things so I've had little time to do my writing.

On the up-side, I've been replaying Mass Effect 1 and 2 in preparation for ME3's release next week, so I'm well submersed in inspiration. I won't lie - when ME3 does come out that will be consuming a lot of my free time, but I fully intend to dedicate some time to this story, too! Writing these two universes together (believably) has turned into a huge project for me so it's definitely not something I want to rush through.

If anyone's curious, the finale to this fic won't involve anything having to do with ME3 given that I started writing it post ME2. It's pretty much an AU already, so I'm going to continue running with that. I will say I don't plan on having a massive battle with a fleet of Reapers (that's already available in-game), but I have some other epic ideas up my sleeve that I'm hoping work as an enjoyable climax for both worlds.

That said - I apologize if this looked like a story update and I disappointed anyone, but I felt I should let everyone know where things stand so at the very least you all know I'm still here and still very much willing to bring this story to a proper close.

In the meantime, if any of you feel so inclined, feel free to drop me a private message about the things you'd like to see addressed in future chapters!

Thanks for all your wonderful comments - I'm glad everyone's been enjoying it so far!

-Kiwi


	19. Author's Note 2

Hey everyone who's still here, just a quick note to say I'm still alive and still plan on finishing this despite the current lack of updates. Sad to say I was one of many disappointed with how ME3 wrapped up, so my inspiration kinda went kaput for awhile.

That said, I hope I can make this story far more epic and less full of plot holes. I appreciate everyone who's still following this - your patience will not be in vain!

Sincerely, your humble author


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